How Angry Birds Is Becoming the Next Super Mario
Rovio CEO Mikael Hed (left) and Rovio "Mighty Eagle" Peter Vesterbacka (right) have cracked the App Store code. Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
Editor’s note: This article is part of a series of profiles about hit apps and the successful programmers behind them.
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You can’t go a day without hearing someone mention Angry Birds.
Fans on Twitter share pictures of cakes they decorated with the Angry Birds characters. On YouTube, parents post videos of their kids playing Angry Birds in real life. Even talk show hosts like Conan O’Brien can’t resist cracking a joke about the game every night.
The game’s creator Rovio on Friday announced a new game, Angry Birds Rio, based on a movie made by Fox. (See teaser images below.)
The game is so ubiquitous it’s almost obnoxious. Some tech observers previously dubbed Angry Birds the new Pac-Man, but that wasn’t enough for the game’s makers.
“What we’re doing is we’re building out the Angry Birds world,” said Peter Vesterbacka, whose business card title reads “Mighty Eagle” of Rovio. “Pac-Man is only one game. Mario is a better benchmark.”
Rovio announced a new Angry Birds game based on a movie made by Fox. The game is due out March on multiple game platforms. Image courtesy of Rovio
Angry Birds first appeared in Apple’s iPhone App Store in December 2009. Since then, the game has expanded to multiple devices, including the iPad, Android phones and the Sony PlayStation Portable, amassing over 75 million downloads to date, according to Rovio. The majority of sales comes from the App Store, where Angry Birds has consistently ranked a best seller.
Made by the creators of Ice Age, Rio will release in theaters April 15. Image courtesy of Rovio
Angry Birds accentuates the business opportunity unlocked by the iTunes App Store, Apple’s digital-distribution platform for selling third-party apps for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. Launched in summer of 2008, the App Store’s friction-free business model proved to be a new digital frontier where software programmers big and small had an opportunity to make serious money, whereas before, hobbyist coders were no match to major game studios and their colossal marketing budgets.
In the App Store, some programmers have netted hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales with clever games, software utilities and DIY social marketing. Apple recently announced that iOS customers surpassed 10 billion app downloads.
But Angry Birds was not a small-team effort, nor was its success a lucky strike. Based in Finland, the Rovio game studio that makes Angry Birds has 40 employees and expects to expand to 100 by the end of this year.
Angry Birds was actually the studio’s 52nd published game, and its 16th originally created game, according to Mikael Hed, Rovio’s CEO. He said the game’s success was carefully engineered with physics-based gameplay that made it easy to learn, while creating depth for advanced players in later stages. Add to that very cute characters and sounds, and a polished design, and you have a big hit.
Posted: January 28th, 2011
at 11:00pm by Brian X. Chen
Topics: App Stars, Apple, Games, Media Players, Phones, Rovio, angry birds, app store, iPhone
Browser App to Deliver Flash to iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch
Steve Jobs has successfully prevented Adobe Flash from getting on the iPhone for years, but a new iOS app promises to bring Flash video to the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch without upsetting the CEO.
Demonstrated below, Skyfire is a web browser that automatically transcodes Flash video into HTML5 so it can display on your iDevice (instead of the blue Lego block symbolizing a lack of Flash support).
To our knowledge, Skyfire will be the first app of its kind to offer a roundabout method for watching Flash videos, when it goes live in the App Store this week.
Apple has prohibited Flash from running on iOS devices ever since the original iPhone launched in 2007. In an open letter published in April, Jobs said Flash was the No. 1 reason Macs crash, and he didn’t wish to “reduce reliability” on iOS products. In the same letter, Jobs vocalized his support for HTML5, a new web standard that does not rely on plug-ins.
“New open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win on mobile devices (and PCs too),” Jobs said.
The Skyfire app only transcodes Flash videos into HTML5 — not games. A Skyfire representative said the Skyfire app was developed with oversight and feedback from Apple.
“It adheres to every guideline put forth by Apple regarding HTML5 video playback for iOS,” the rep said. “Skyfire will allow consumers to play millions of Flash videos on Apple devices without the technical problems for which Jobs banned Flash.”
The app was submitted late August, and it will go live in the App Store on Thursday.
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iPhone in iPhone app is useless, but mesmerizing
Here’s the premise: you take a good old fashioned augmented reality setup, the likes of which we’ve seen all over the land, and attach a three-dimensional, rotatable iPhone to it. Not impressed yet, are you? Neither were we, but there’s some secret sauce to this one: you can actually launch apps on the simulated iPhone. That extra layer of interactivity makes the video after the break a lot more fascinating than it has any right to be, though it’s worth pointing out that we don’t think the apps are actually usable — they just give the illusion of launching. Anyhow, don’t wait around while all the cool kids are watching it, go have a gander yourself.
Continue reading iPhone in iPhone app is useless, but mesmerizing
iPhone in iPhone app is useless, but mesmerizing originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Dec 2009 06:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Older iPhones Gain Video Recording
The first- and second-generation iPhones are now capable of video recording, and you won’t even need to do any hacking.
Last week, Wired.com reported that Apple released its restrictions on a private API for video capturing. As a result, Apple approved Ustream, a live video streaming app that’s free in the App Store. The extra bonus? In addition to streaming-video capability, the app has a video recorder, too — and that also works with older iPhones.
Permitting the video API in third-party apps should open doors to a host of apps offering video recording for older iPhones. Today, The Unofficial Apple Weblog’s Erica Sadun pointed out a $1 app called Camcorder for shooting video with older iPhones. Its interface is straight to the point: You launch the app, and there’s a Record button to start capturing. However, Sadun noted the frame rate is slow on an iPhone 3G, and you can’t do much with the recorded video except watch it on your iPhone. She added that the GUI is flimsy.
Based on those comments, we’d say “pass.” But look forward to some slick video-recording apps optimized for older iPhones. It’s inevitable developers will capitalize on this opportunity.
This should come as good news for many owners of the previous-generation iPhones. Previously, video recording was exclusive to the new iPhone 3GS. Owners of the original iPhone and the iPhone 3G could only gain access to video recording by jailbreaking the iPhone, but that’s no longer the case.
Camcorder Download Link [iTunes]
Ustream Download Link [iTunes]
See Also:
- 6 Reasons to Jailbreak Your iPhone
- Why the IPhone Doesn’t Record Video
- Apple Hints at Video Conferencing for Future iPhones
- Apple’s Next Media Frontier Will Be Streaming Video
iPhone Apps That Bloggers Need
Most bloggers are going to do the majority of their speedy writing in front of a computer. But occasionally there will be instances — breaking-news scenarios — where all we can rely on is our trusty phone to do our jobs.
Gadget Lab’s friends at WP Beginner, a WordPress enthusiast blog, has compiled a list of 10 must-have iPhone apps for bloggers: mobile software that could help bloggers while they’re on the run, or on an everyday basis in general. The list includes a blogging app, a Twitter client, note-taking utilities and others.
The WordPress app [iTunes] for iPhone is a good suggestion: It’s a slick app that works well with WordPress blogs in a friendly way. (Yes, Wired.com uses WordPress.) So long as you’re a decent typist with the iPhone’s virtual keyboard, posting one or two paragraphs of a breaking news story on the scene with the WordPress app should be no sweat.
Another app mentioned is Evernote [iTunes] a popular cloud-based note-taking service — one I’ve personally found very useful as a writer who does his work on multiple gadgets. My contacts list, for example, is saved on Evernote, so I look up sources’ phone numbers and e-mail addresses on any computer or phone so long as I have an internet connection.
Twitterific [iTunes], a free Twitter client, also made it to the list, which makes sense: Twitter certainly helps bloggers stay plugged in to the news. However, we’re big fans of Tweetie 2, a Twitter app we think has a superior interface, so we’d suggest getting that instead. It just costs $3.
Visit WP Beginner for the full list of apps. What iPhone apps would you add to this list of must-haves for bloggers? Add your apps in the comments below. To give you some ideas, here are some more of Gadget Lab’s suggestions: News Feed, a $1 news content aggregator; and Scanner 911, a $1 police radio scanner for bloggers and journalists chasing down crime scoops.
See Also:
- 10 Most Awesome iPhone Apps of 2008
- iPhone 3.0 Wish List: Accessory-Powered Apps We Want
- 22 iPhone Apps for Science Geeks
- Apple Promotes All-Time Top iPhone Apps
Photo: johanl/Flickr
