Almost never. If, for instance, it is used for the posessive like in english, it is often called “idiot apostrophe”.
That is not right.
That is not right.
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It’s not that odd as it seems. 
You can type ’ relatively fast (I use the right shift and #).
But as Milan wrote: You don’t need it often - far less than in English. There are only two cases: First to mark an “omission”, like “it’s” in English. But in German we don’t do that often because in most cases this would be slang. For example: “Das war ’ne Katastrophe” (= “Das war eine Katastrophe” = “This was a disaster”).
And you need the ’ to enter single quotes, like speech in speech:
Alice said: “My husband said yesterday ‘buy some meat’ to me”.
(Ok, that’s not a good example, but I hope one can see what I mean. )
Yes. I can’t see “CD’s” and “DVD’s” anymore. Both are wrong and examples for the “idiot apostrophe”. But it seems that you have this kind of (wrong used) apostrophes in English too…
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Indeed. That’s when people think they need it in plurals but it’s completely unnecessary and incorrect. Drives me UP THE WALL. We (somewhat unfairly) call it a ‘grocer’s apostrophe’ because of a history of grocers doing it with ‘bananas’, ‘apples’, etc (I can’t bring myself to actually include it in those examples but you know what I mean).
It’s probably more common with words that end in vowels (banana) because people feel it looks like a weird word and they need to clarify that it’s a plural. It happens a lot with abbreviations too, like in your examples.
Edit: oops, we should move this conversation to the language thread.
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How is your language (right now)…
Eh, what?
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In Germany it’s common to use the apostrophe wrong in names of shops. For example “Helga’s Kiosk” (= it’s the kiosk owned by a girl named Helga). In that very special case even the German grammar commission and the Duden gave up and allowed it. There is even a website collecting pictures of those idiot apostrophe.
Yes, poor @Calypso. (That’s another example why I would like to be able to move conversations from my own thread into another thread…)
Green. Thank you for the question!
Mine is blueish…
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…and from the bottom of the cave, the Eiffel 65 suddenly appear and start to sing…
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But that’s right. Did they take the apostrophe out then? Or do you mean it doesn’t need one in German?
Nooooooooo! 
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This could be the ideal opportunity to study the recent phenomenon that hair saloons in germany hardly use first names any more, but dozens and dozens of awful puns, one more out there than the other. I have no idea why that is.
Not needed. It would be “Helgas Saloon”. It´d be redunant to disctinct it from a plural that way since common names only rarely have plurals. All the Milans in the world can tell you that.
Seconded. Earsnake alert!!!
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“Der Postillion” has reported that they have to use puns or they will lose their license… 
What the Farnholz Milan said. It’s the genitive, so “Helgas Kneipe” (= The Saloon owned by Helga = Helga’s Saloon) is correct. The genitive is build in German without the apostrophe. We have only one exception: If there would be two “s” - for example in “Klaus’ Kiosk”. But there the apostrophe is a sign that there is a character omitted (so we don’t have to write “Klauss Kiosk”).
btw: The English genitive with the apostrophe like in “Ron’s game” is the origin of the problem: A lot of Germans mix up English with German - the wrong way. For example we have adopted the saying “It happened in 1987.” In German we say: “Es passierte in 1987.” But that isn’t a correct German sentence. We don’t say “in”. So the correct German translation would be “Es passierte 1987.”
You don’t have to post the song - I have it in my ears already…
In German though, right? I’m assuming it works differently.
We would still use an apostrophe for that in English. It doesn’t matter that you don’t use names in the plural form. It’s still grammatically incorrect to say ‘Kates Bakery’.
Edit: actually @Someone’s just answered that. Interesting difference between German and English.
Yes, the plural works similar in English and German. The genitive is different.
If Helga owns one Saloon we write: “Helgas Saloon”. If she owns two Saloons we write “Helgas Saloons” (= the saloons owned by Helga).
See to me that looks like a weird brand called ‘Helgas’ (Hel-gas).
So if someone with the surname Daniels owned a saloon (salon?), would that have an apostrophe after the s (to distinguish it from Daniel’s ie Daniels)?
Ah , I remember that!
Who?
Saloon Helga used to be a really good austrian radio show.
Never heard that before.
Would make sense, but no.
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If Helga names her Saloon “Helgas Saloon” then “Helga” is indeed some kind of a brand - like the Jack Daniels example below
Two different things.
We have adopted the English word “Saloon” with the same meaning. So if you say “Saloon” we Germans thing about the old Saloons from American Western movies:
My dictionary translates “Saloon” also to bar or pub. That would be a “Bar” or a “Kneipe” in German.
The German “Salon” is a word that origins in the French word “le salon” and means (in our example of the hairdressers) a hair salon.
Yes, exactly.
First we have to add a genitive-s so it would be “Danielss Saloon”. But then we would have two “ss”. We Germans don’t like that. Thus we replace the second “s” with an apostrophe. So we get the correct name of the bar: “Daniels’ Saloon” with the apostrophe behind the “s”. Incorrect German would be: “Daniel’s Saloon” because that would be the Saloon owned by Daniel.
But Mr. Daniels could open an English pub in Germany of course. In that case he would use an English name and apply the English grammar rules.
The main character from the movie “Milan and the missed H”. 
Or an actress from an old German soft porno movie…
Watch the news in television. A lot of people use “in” if they mean “im Jahr”.
Doch.
It´s simliar with the words Cabaret and Kabarett. Except in austria where they still pronounce it french the difference is that Cabaret is more the burlesque thing while Kabarett is political/satircal stand up comedy, that is performed in groups and usually with music.
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Yes, we have adopted many french words, for example Portmonee (= wallet). 
I was saying ‘Helgas’, with the s, sounds to me, an English person, like a brand. The absence of an apostrophe prevents me from knowing it’s related to the name Helga.
I know that 
wasn’t sure if you actually meant salon.
That would be the same if it was using grammatically correct English. We use an apostrophe after the s in the same way. But a lot of brands drop it I guess.
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