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Barnes & Noble logs 1m Nook app downloads in first week, people are probably playing Angry Birds instead of reading
We were pretty stoked when Barnes & Noble finally made Android apps a legit feature on the Nook Color (lack of Market access be damned) and, unsurprisingly, many of you were, too -- the company reports that within a week of making these applications available, it hit 1 million downloads. It would seem we can glean two stunningly obvious things from this tidbit: one, the addition of features through software updates makes people happy. Two: you people really feel the need to play Angry Birds on every device you own, don't you? According to B&N, the never-ending avian spectacle topped the paid app list, with Fliq Calendar leading the free ones. Missing from this stat, of course, is any insight into how fast this catalog is growing -- a good question, since these Android applications have to get tweaked especially for the Nook Color before you can download 'em. Self-congratulatory press release after the break.
Book publishers fight the one-screen problem
Publishers of ebooks are meeting this week at the World e-Reading Congress, and a site called the Bookseller has an interesting writeup of one of the issues being discussed there: Whether the book market can compete with, of all things, Angry Birds. Apple's iPad has become, publishers say, a "one-screen" device, and that's led to a one-screen problem. Ebooks and other traditional media are now competing, on a 1:1 ratio, for time that could also be spent using apps and games. Book publishing, one of the panelists says, finds itself "competing vertically and horizontally against all other media." That's an interesting take on the subject, and sure, you could argue that since your books and video games are now basically running on the same devices, the competition could be a little more direct than it's been before. But to some extent, this is much ado over little to nothing -- books have always "competed" with other forms of entertainment, and in many cases they've not only survived but come out on top. Just because opening a book now consists of launching iBooks, the Kindle app or another ebook reading app doesn't mean the rules have changed all that much. Sara Lloyd from Pan Macmillan, puts a good final word on the subject: "We have just been constrained by book covers, but we can now evolve further. The only difference now is that we won't always make things that look like books." That's the key here -- instead of viewing other apps on the iPad as competition for the old forms of book sales, it's probably time to start looking at how that form of media can evolve as well.
Apple App Store, iPhone 4 awarded Guinness World Records
Guinness World Records has awarded Apple several world records today for the App Store and the iPhone 4. Additionally, several iOS developers were also awarded world records. Here's the breakdown from the Guinness World Records 2011 Gamer's Edition: Fastest-Selling Portable Gaming System -- iPhone 4: Guinness states that the iPhone 4's first-day sales estimates of 1.5 million make it the fastest selling game system in history. By comparison the PSP only sold 200,000 units its first day and the Nintendo DS sold 600,000 units in its first week. Most Popular Application Marketplace; Largest Downloadable Video Game Store; and Largest Launch Line-up of Any Gaming System -- Apple App Store: As of the time Guinness made its records decision, the App Store had over 6.5 billion downloads and 259,470 apps for purchase or free download making it the most popular downloadable app store in the world. Of those apps, 37,362 were games, making the App Store the largest video game download store in the world. Finally, when the App Store launched on July 10, 2008, the App Store featured over 500 apps, including 145 games, making it the "Largest Launch Line-up of Any Gaming System." Apple wasn't the only one to receive app accolades, however. iOS developers were also awarded titles by Guinness: Angry Birds got Top Paid-For App Store Game in Most Countries with more than 6.5 million downloads; Plants vs. Zombies was awarded Fastest-Selling iPhone/iPod Strategy Game with 300,000 paid downloads in its first nine days on sale; and Tap Tap Revenge was awarded the Most Popular iPhone Game Series with a combined 15 million downloads for all the Tap Tap games. Guinness World Records 2011 Gamer's Edition is available on Amazon. [via LA Times]
Angry Birds gets a web version, coming to Chrome Web Store
Yet another platform has been conquered by the affronted fowl: the web! Angry Birds' web client is built in WebGL, so presumably browsers other than Google's Chrome should be able to run it as well, and even if you can't handle WebGL, there's Canvas support too. 60fps are promised on most modern PCs, and we've spotted SD and HD labels, suggesting there'll be a choice of quality to match your computer's performance. Offline gaming will also be available. Chrome will get some exclusive content, such as "Chrome bombs" and other cutesy bits. Rovio just noted it's "really, really happy about the 5 percent," referring to Google's pricing model of charging a flat fee of 5 percent to developers on in-app purchases in the Chrome Web Store. Yes, the Mighty Eagle will be a purchasable option for the impatient among you. The game will be available in the Store immediately after Google's I/O 2011 keynote, so look out for it shortly. Update: And the Angry Birds have landed. Hit up the source link below to obtain the free app. %Gallery-123364%
Pomplamoose covers the Angry Birds theme
I'm a big fan of Pomplamoose, the fun indie duo of musicians Jack Conte and Nataly Dawn that often posts song covers on YouTube, and I was happy to see that their latest cover is directly iPhone-related. They're apparently big fans of Angry Birds, and they've put together a "videosong" cover of the popular smartphone game's theme song. The cynical among you may be inspired to try and fight the cheer in the video on the next page (especially since the video seems to be promoted by some Samsung smartphone), but let's keep that to a minimum, shall we? It's cute. This definitely isn't my favorite Pomplamoose song, though. If you want to hear these guys doing something a little more original (and frankly, subtle), check out their great songs Centrifuge and Always in the Season. They're not theme songs to popular iOS games, obviously, but they are great tunes nevertheless.
The machine apocalypse can wait; robot busy playing Angry Birds
I've got to admit, I've never seen the appeal of Angry Birds. The game just isn't that fun to me. I know a lot of readers disagree with that, and now I know of one robot that would disagree as well. Yes, Finnish company OptoFidelity has created a robot with the sole purpose of playing Angry Birds. Impressive? Yes. Kinda stupid? Yes. But then again, it's better than them creating robots that can kill you, which other companies are doing right at this moment. Speaking of which, OptoFidelity has created a video, appropriately titled "Mac vs. Machine," which shows the robot getting its game on. Check it out below. [via TechCrunch]
Rovio up for three Develop Awards
Rovio, maker of Angry Birds, has been nominated for three different awards at this year's Develop Awards, honoring some of the best names in video game and interactive software development. The Finnish company has been nominated for Best Use of a License or IP (presumably for the Angry Birds Rio spinoff), Best Indie Studio, and Best Handheld Studio for its work on the mobile platforms. There are a few other interesting names on the list (including NaturalMotion, who've made a few iOS games themselves, in addition to their physics engines, and Andreas Illiger, maker of the great Tiny Wings), though things seem to be aimed more towards the European continent than anywhere else. Still, it'll be interesting to see who gets honored. The awards are to be given away in Brighton, England on July 20th of this year. We'll be sure to ask former TUAWer and Brighton native Nik Fletcher to sneak into the ceremony.
Android apps on PlayBook eyes-on (video)
We knew it was coming, but today at BlackBerry World 2011 we were treated to a demo of Android apps running natively on the PlayBook. The end result isn't too far removed from what we saw with Myriad's Alien Dalvik at Mobile World Congress. Android's menu and home buttons are emulated using the standard PlayBook gestures, and the back button is replaced with an on-screen softkey. Of course, you'll have to visit App World to download Android apps for the PlayBook when the Android Player (as it's called) finally becomes available. And speaking of Android apps, the wildly popular Angry Birds is coming to the PlayBook as a native game - no cross-platform trickery required.
NFC version of Angry Birds coming to the Nokia C7 as part of the Symbian Anna update
Those angry birds just keep on coming. Weeks after announcing a spin-off exclusive to Amazon's App Store, Rovio is previewing a version indigenous to Nokia handsets -- specifically, those with Near Field Communication chips. Angry Birds Free with Magic (how's that for a mouthful?) includes five "normal" levels, along with 15 others that players unlock by tapping their phones together. In total, you'll need three friends with cutting-edge phones, as each one helps unlock five levels. Oddly, though, Angry Birds continues to be a single-player game, even after you've joined forces with your buddies to help each other advance. For now, it'll be available to C7 owners as part of the upcoming Symbian Anna update, though other Nokia handsets with NFC chips will get the game this year. Rovio also says it's working on a full version, which will be available in the Ovi store. For now, you can head on past the break to see a short video of some cartoon phones and cell-shaded piggies.
April Fools' Day roundup: Google overload edition
Ah, April 1st. It's that time of the year again when the internet is rife with odd news and pranks. As before, news sites like us end up with a healthy stream of tips throughout April Fools' Day (thanks, by the way), so let us round up some of the best findings for your comedic appetite. Contenders include the usual suspects like Google and ThinkGeek, the former of which dominating the gigglesphere this year with some new "features." We also have some interesting submissions from Hulu, a font company, and probably plenty more to come as the day progresses, so keep watching this space as we add new entries to this post. Right, let the fun commence after the break.
HSN details Nook Color update for 'mid-April': Android 2.2, Flash, apps and push email
Spent some quality time watching the Home Shopping Network this morning to hear just how the Nook Color will be improved? That's what we thought... but we bit the bullet and tuned in ourselves to get the details for you. Simply put, HSN says Barnes and Noble will start rolling out an over-the-air software package in "mid-April" that will update the Nook Color to Android 2.2, bringing Adobe Flash Player, Angry Birds, and push email of some sort. It'll also apparently include "lots of Nook apps," though the channel's pitchmen only had one to show on TV -- a kid-friendly sketchpad, with a variety of drawing utensils and colored paper. HSN hosts also claim that customers who purchase the Nook Color on the show are "guaranteed to be the very first people updated," though we're not sure we'll take them at their word, considering some of the other fabulous exaggerations we just heard on the air. %Gallery-119775%
AT&T planning access to Amazon Appstore, sideloading still an open question
Angry Birds developer Rovio announced on its Facebook account a few hours ago that "AT&T is also working on enabling purchases from the Amazon Appstore soon," which would mark a pretty big move on AT&T's part since they've been firm in their resolve to keep apps from outside the Android Market ecosystem off their branded Android devices -- a frustrating (and arguably illogical) stance, to say the least. Well, first the good news -- AT&T has confirmed to us that they are, in fact, setting up access to Amazon's store: "We're working to give our Android customers access to third party application stores. This requires updates to our systems and finalizing arrangements with Amazon. We will share more info with our customers in the near future." The bad news is that AT&T's having any discussions with Amazon about this at all, which would seem to indicate that they're planning on making an exception to their Android Market policy for the Amazon Appstore rather than simply enabling sideloading on devices altogether and calling it a day. We suppose this could involve a round of firmware updates that drops the Appstore in ROM, but that seems like an awful lot of work considering how much red tape is involved in pushing even a single update for one handset on a major carrier. More on this as we get it; hopefully, AT&T subscribers will have their Angry Birds Rio fix soon enough. [Thanks, Thomas]
Angry Birds Rio out now on iPhone, iPad, Mac
The movie tie-in game for Angry Birds, called Angry Birds Rio, is now available on the iOS App Store for 99 cents on iPhone and $2.99 on the iPad; it's $4.99 on the Mac App Store. The game features 60 new levels of the popular bird-throwing game and stars two characters from the upcoming movie Rio. It features full Game Center integration with all new achievements and boasts "a spectacular boss fight" of some kind. In short, if you like Angry Birds, you'll enjoy this one as well. The game unfortunately does contain those ads that had some feathers ruffled in the original version, but the ratings on iTunes haven't suffered very much. And the description on the iOS store does promise updates "throughout 2011," so there's more content to come. In case you don't want to spend the buck just yet, there are also free versions for both platforms that have six levels to check out. But it's Angry Birds -- while it looks from the screenshot like you're busting birds out of cages rather than attacking pigs, the catapult physics gameplay is still the main focus.
Amazon Appstore for Android goes live, welcomes newcomers with free Angry Birds Rio
In spite of Apple's grumbling, Amazon's proceeding full steam ahead with the rollout of its Appstore for Android. The switch has just been flipped and early adopters will be welcomed with a free copy of Angry Birds Rio, whose Android launch Amazon scooped all to itself. Beyond day one, Rio will be a $0.99 app, but others will take its place as the online retailer is aiming to serve one usually-paid app for free each day. A total of around 3,800 applications are available at launch and you'll be able to get on board via either a dedicated Appstore app on Android (sideload link available below) or Amazon's web interface. The latter offers you a 30-minute Test Drive facility, where you can try out a program you might fancy for your phone before purchasing. Service looks to be US-only for now -- sorry, international users. Update: The web Appstore has gone down. Don't panic, we're sure it's just teething troubles and not a smiting by the Cupertino ninja collective. In the mean time, the app still looks to be working okay.
Ads in Angry Birds cause some squawking
Rovio's Peter Vesterbacka was pretty outgoing at GDC a few weeks ago, claiming that "it all works" when it comes to ad-driven business models on the App Store. But he might be relearning that lesson the hard way right now -- after an update to Angry Birds HD on the iPad added a "News" section in the replay screen that advertises other Angry Birds products, some users have gotten their feathers ruffled. That "News" section takes a while to load, and it must come up every time a level needs to be restarted, which means some players have raised their voices and voting fingers on the official iTunes listing. There's a few issues here -- first, we've seen in the past that most users don't actually mind ads in iPhone apps, as long as they don't mess up the flow of the app. It sounds like Rovio didn't quite plan this one correctly. Users who need to replay levels a lot (like those trying to max out their star totals) are seeing the ads quite a bit and losing that loading time every time, which creates frustration. Second, this is a free update to a paid app, and users who had already paid the US$4.99 for it are now frustrated that they're seeing ads, even if they are just for other Angry Birds products. So what's Rovio to do? The company has had success already with ads on the Android version of the app, but that was originally a free download. Given that the iTunes ratings are definitely suffering (the latest version only has 2.5 stars, as opposed to all versions' 4.5 stars), Rovio will probably have to put its ads elsewhere, either in the main menu of the app or out of the paid app completely. It seems like Vesterbacka and company have finally found a model for Angry Birds that doesn't work that well.
Angry Birds Rio will be exclusive to Amazon Appstore on Android launch
Think you'll be heading to the Android Market to get your next fix of Rovio Mobile's insanely popular Angry Birds? Think again. The next installment in the aviary vengeance saga, Angry Birds Rio, will launch exclusively on Amazon's upcoming Appstore for Android. That does sound like it will eventually achieve universal distribution via the Market, but in the interim Amazon has scored a pretty big scoop in its efforts to attract users to its own app repository. We're also promised the Appstore is launching "very soon" and Amazon has just inaugurated an @amazonappstore account on Twitter to keep us abreast of when precisely that will happen.
Rovio picks up $42 million in first funding round
Rovio, the makers of Angry Birds, has nabbed a total of $42 million in a first round of venture capitalist funding. This isn't necessarily quite that big a payday for the company -- while that's obviously a lot of money, the company has reportedly already pulled in about $70 million from app sales and the various licensing money it's been making off of those frustrated flyers and their grunty pig counterparts. But what this does mean is that any company looking to buy Rovio will have a tougher time of it, since the Finnish mobile game developer is now worth that much more. Of course, going from what I saw of Rovio's Peter Vesterbacka at last week's GDC conference, I strongly doubt the company wants to be bought anyway. Vesterbacka seems to believe that Angry Birds is more or less vindication for the other fifty games his company made before it, and he's interested in having Rovio ride this franchise for as long as it will carry them. It's possible Rovio could get acquired (if the check gets big enough), but since Vesterbacka believes there's a lot more to do with Angry Birds, my guess is he'll use the money he's already put together to stay his own company.
GDC 2011: Building the Angry Birds franchise
Rovio's Peter Vesterbacka hosted an entertaining panel on the first day of the 2011 Game Developers Conference here in San Francisco. Rovio's app, Angry Birds, is the runaway hit of Apple's iOS platform, signifying both the potential reach of iOS games and the chance for indie mobile developers to create gigantic hits. Vesterbacka, speaking in his Finnish accent, was almost arrogant at times during his talk, saying that after last year's GDC, Rovio is "a bit more popular now for some reason," and that while people laughed at his predictions of 100 million downloads for the game across all the platforms, Rovio is basically there. But he was also informative and helpful, and he thanked Apple multiple times during the talk. Rovio's made 52 different mobile games so far, and Vesterbacka credited Apple for changing the tempo around the mobile games market. Before Apple, mobile carriers held all of the power, and carriers both a) wanted a lot of games for their specific platforms, and b) didn't care about the quality. Vesterbacka joked about pitching Angry Birds to a carrier before the App Store: "It's a game where you slingshot birds at three pigs," he said, and then he mimicked the reply to the crowd's laughter: "It's not a poker game? Not interested."
TUAW's Daily App: Tiny Wings
Some games and apps picked for our Daily App become hits after they get selected, but others sort of pop out of the App Store as fully-formed hits already, and we just follow along. Tiny Wings is one of the latter. It's already a huge hit, having beat out Angry Birds for the top paid spot on the App Store. If you haven't played it yet, it's definitely worth a try. In Tiny Wings, you're a little bird with (surprise) tiny wings. By touching the screen, you can speed the cute little guy up and down hills that he can ramp off of, trying to travel as far as possible while collecting speed boosts. Like some of the best games on the App Store, it's hard to explain, but it's very easy to play. Just a moment with Tiny Wings is all it takes to figure it out. The gorgeous art and music make the experience casually excellent; it's very simple to jump into, but kind of tough to master. I can't recommend Tiny Wings enough. If you haven't picked it up on the App Store for US$0.99 yet, odds are you will soon anyway. This is developer Andreas Illiger's first app, but it looks like he struck gold on his first try.
Angry Birds doing a movie tie-in as well
Hot on the heels of the announcement that Doodle Jump will be working with Universal to promote the upcoming Hop movie, Angry Birds developer Rovio Mobile confirmed it will be producing a new version of Angry Birds set in Rio. This new version will be used to promote the upcoming movie Rio, which is being produced by 20th Century Fox and developed by the folks behind the popular Ice Age series of animated children's movies. The movie will follow the adventures of two blue macaws, Blu and Jewel, who will also star in the new Angry Birds game. The amusing trailer for the game is included after the break and is worth a look for Angry Birds fans. The game will debut in March and will feature 45 new levels with additional levels available via app updates. This move by Rovio is yet another example of Hollywood eyeing the iOS platform for promotion and profits. This trend was kicked off in a big way when Disney acquired Tapulous, the developer of the popular Tap Tap series of games, and this is probably far from the last we'll see of it. You can check out the movie trailer after the jump. [Via touchArcade]
