I can guess your age by asking you two questions: What smartphone do you own and what’s your favorite mobile game? If you answered Android and Angry Birds, you must be between 35 and 44 years old. Turns out, 35 percent of that age group simply adores Angry Birds, while younger gamers could care less about the blue, red and yellow pig-haters.
Rovio, the creators of Angry Birds, celebrated the game’s second birthday on December 11 with an update that’s guaranteed to please fans of the bird slinger. In addition to 15 brand new levels, version 2.0 of the original Angry Birds game unlocks every episode available.
Fruit Ninjais one of those titles almost every iOS gamer has experienced at some point — just like Angry Birds. And like the aforementioned bird game, the makers of Fruit Ninja are hoping to cash in on their popularity this holiday season with these incredibly adorable Fruit Ninja plush toys.
Ever wondered how long you spend on your iPhone playing Angry Birds, or watching videos on YouTube? Well, if your device is jailbroken, there’s a handy new tweak called App Stat that will tell you exactly how much time you put into each app.
Hey Geronimo, an indie-pop band from Australia, have brought a number of iOS games to life for their latest music video that sees titles like Plants vs. Zombies, Flight Control, Cut the Rope, and, of course, Angry Birds played in the real world.
The humorous clip perfectly suits the band’s famously kooky image, and I think you’ll love it if you’ve played any one of these releases before.
Are you being taunted by the sneering pigs? Does the Bluebird of Happiness never seem to come your way? Then you -like I – are an Angry Bird addict and responsible for the infuriating entertainment becoming the world’s most popular game, topping half a billion downloads.
Up until now, the Angry Birds have stayed terrestrial, pushing their beaks no higher than the cumulus clouds in their squawking, feather-strewn war against the evil Pig Armada.
That’s about to change. The Angry Birds are going to outer space. No, Rovio’s not doing a sci-fi themed Angry Birds sequel, although that’s not a shabby idea: NASA is sending some iPads to the International Space Station, along with an Angry Bird plush toy.
If you’re the type of person who likes to look like a complete fool for Halloween, rather than attempt to look remotely scary, then we have the perfect costumes for you: those crazy little critters from Angry Birds.
Rovio’s Angry Birds franchise is by far the most successful game title to make it in the App Store. The game has been downloaded in its various forms over 350 million times, and there’s all kinds of Angry Birds merchandise out there to buy.
So, what’s next for the money makers at Rovio? You guessed it: Halloween costumes.
Orangutans at the Milwaukee County Zoo could be some of the luckiest orangutans on Earth. Why? Because just like millions of humans, they enjoy using apps, playing games, and watching videos on the iPad.
Lodsys has gained plenty of fame (even infamy) in recent months for its continued pursuit of a number iOS and Android developers for their alleged infringement on patents that cover in-app purchases and upgrade links. Dissatisfied with its results so far, it now takes aim at some of the big names in gaming… but has Lodsys now bitten off more than it can chew?
This week’s roundup of must-have games kicks off with the Nintendo DS classic Zookeeper — a vivid and engaging puzzle game in which your mission is to capture the animals and become the world’s best zookeeper. There’s more puzzle fun in Feevo HD, which boasts Bejeweled-like match gameplay from the makers of Tetris Online; and Bunny Shooter will be a huge hit with Angry Birds fans thanks to its physics-based bunny assassination with a bow & arrow.
Rovio’s Angry Birds is one of most successful iOS games of all time and it seems like everyone who’s ever used an iOS device has played it. But it’s not just humans who enjoy catapulting birds into pigs: OptoFidelity has created a robot with the sole purpose of playing Angry Birds.
The Finnish company uses its robots for touch panel testing and performance testing for mobile devices using video and optical measuring systems, so they already had the components required, and say it wasn’t hard to build a system for “this particular need.” The difficulty was getting the robot to play through every level of the game and achieve a three-star rating for each one.
Great news for all you Angry Birds addicts; Seasons has just been updated for Easter, delivering 15 brand new levels of bird throwing fun, suitably themed for the Easter holiday with plenty of eggs and pigs wearing bunny ears.
In addition to the new levels, there are also new Game Centre achievements and some new golden eggs for you to discover.
The update is free to those who have already purchased Angry Birds Seasons for the iPhone or iPad, or $0.99 and $1.99 respectively for those who haven’t.
Check out Rovio’s gameplay trailer for the Easter update below:
Rovio Mobile, the creator of the hugely successful series of Angry Birds games, has revealed in a message posted on Twitter that it is working on a solution to bring game syncing across all devices. The feature would enable players to begin a game on their iPad at home, which they could then continue from where they left off on their iPhone on the train. When you unlock a new level on one device, you unlock the level on all devices.
Game syncing is a feature that many iOS games would benefit from. As more and more games and applications become universal and playable on both the iPhone and the iPad, one of the biggest frustrations is that you have to complete the same levels, missions, and objectives twice – once on each device. The same goes for high scores.
Rovio has also confirmed a forthcoming Easter update to Angry Birds Seasons – due sometime next week – which will deliver 15 brand new levels to enjoy while you devour your eggs. And if you didn’t have enough platforms the play Angry Birds on, the Facebook version of the game will also get three new levels so that it doesn’t feel too left out.
This week’s roundup of must-have iOS games features what I think could be the next iPhone craze; Tiny Wings is a simple one-button arcade game based on a dream of flying, and another huge App Store success that will be sure to hang around for a while at the top of the paid charts, just like Angry Birdsor Doodle Jump.
Volcano Escapeis another of our favorites – a terrific platformer that provides level after level of action-packed entertainment, which, together with its crazy characters and explosive weaponry, makes it one of the greatest games of its genre.
Zombies are quite the stars within the App Store – some of the most popular iOS games feature the living dead. Our third must-have game this week, and another to add to the list of zombie successes, is Zombie Runaway – a brilliant run-as-far-as-you-can game that’s a little different to the rest.
Find out more about the games above after the break!
The next iPhone game to join the likes of Doodle Jumpand Angry Birdsas hugely popular titles that seem to cling to the top of the App Store charts for months on end could be Tiny Wings – a simple one-button arcade game based on a dream of flying. Featuring a loveable little bird whose wings are too small to fly, the aim of this game is to slide up and down hills as fast as you can, flapping your wings when the time is right to achieve a moment’s flight… before gravity brings you back down again.
Fly as far as you can, fulfilling each of your tasks to upgrade you nest, and try to unlock all 27 of the tricky OpenFeint achievements. While the object of the game seems fairly easy, it features enough of a challenge to ensure you’re quickly addicted to its charm, and you won’t be able to put it down. Its most unique feature is the procedural generated graphics that make the beautiful visuals look different every day you play. Tiny Wings is a remarkably simple idea that makes for a wonderful game.
The Best App Ever is… Angry Birds, according to the 148Apps website.
On Thursday here at Macworld, the hyper-popular game won the top Best App Ever category in 148App’s third annual Best App Ever awards. The $4.99 game also won the top spot in six other categories. The awards attracted about 500,000 votes for the 609 final nominees.
Angry Birds dominated Apple’s top iTunes download charts for most of most of last year (12 million downloads), and is storming the charts on Android, PlayStation Portable, Windows and is proposed on several other platforms.
The Mac App Store has been live for less than a day, but already pirates have figured out how to circumvent its DRM to install and run unauthorized paid apps. It’s not Apple’s fault, though: instead, it looks like developers just haven’t been paying attention to Apple’s own app validation advice.
Having sold millions of copies of their fowls vs. sows catapult game, Angry Birds, developer Rovio is experiencing such success that they’re even starting to begrudge Apple their thirty percent cut off the top of in-app purchases.
Rovio has just announced that they intend on launching Bad Piggy Bank, a new in-game payment system which will allow Angry Birds customers to make in-app purchases without going through Apple.
When Steve Jobs said that Android was fragmented, here’s exactly what he meant: according to Rovio, who make the popular mobile game Angry Birds, they are struggling to support the game on all of the different Android hardware. In comparison, iOS development is easy as a dream.
This week’s must-have iOS games features a great new sports package for the iPhone that offers 5 action-packed sports games including archery, bowling, and tennis. Yoo! Sportsclaims to be the next generation of iOS gaming.
Reckless Racingis EA’s fantastic new dirt-road racer and another of our favorite games this week. It combines traditional top-down racing with state of the art graphic environments optimized for the Retina display.
Angry Birds Halloweenalso features – the ghastly special edition of one of the best-selling iOS games in the App Store.
Today marks the official debut of Windows Phone 7, Microsoft’s three-years-too-late response to the smartphone revolution headed by Apple with the release of the original iPhone. By most accounts, WIndows Phone 7’s software is far more advanced than its predecessor, Windows Mobile 6.5, and might even be pretty good… but it’s going to take more than a decent smartphone operating system these days to compete with iOS and Android: namely, a sizable, content-rich App Store with some showcase software for users to download out of the gate.
Early rumors tip the Windows Phone Marketplace to launch with a respectable 2,000 apps… but if news hitting the feeds this morning is anything to go by, those numbers might very well be inflated dishonestly. Microsoft has been prominently advertising several apps as being available on the Windows Phone Marketplace when it launches, including Rovio Mobile’s hit game, Angry Birds. The only problem? Rovio hasn’t even decided on doing a port yet.