Gadgetory

it's time to start cultivating your collection of rare apps I'm Bridget Carey and this is your CNET update just a week after the strange flappy bird app soared to popularity it's now been removed from the App Store's by its creator the game hit the top of the charts for iTunes in Google Play but the Vietnamese developer took it down after tweeting that he's uncomfortable with the attention that he's received for this game and he just can't take it anymore or so he says in a previous interview he said that he was making good money from the game with ad revenue making as much as fifty thousand dollars a day the point of the game is to tap the screen to make your bird fly between green pipes that look just like the pipes from a Mario game the Creator says that he did not pull it off the iTunes and Google Play Store because of legal issues as some have suspected Nintendo may have come after him for copying the look of the elements in the game it's not clear how flappy bird got so popular this was a free poorly designed game that was addictive and tricky in the same fashion as a carnival game you know it seems like it should be easy but then when you fail quickly you get really annoyed and you want to try again and again and again thinking of course you can get better some also speculate that he may have used fake reviews and bots to increase his download numbers to get media attention it all seems a little fishy maybe he couldn't take the guilt of faking his way to the top or perhaps pulling the app was just another stunt to give him more attention for his next game on eBay you can now find people selling iPhones and iPads with flappy bird installed as if it makes the device more valuable because it's a collector's item you have to wonder if this starts a trend of people collecting deleted apps but this game was so simple to make there are dozens of games that you can download for free that are a clone of flappy bird there's flappy pig in the Google Play Store there's flappy fish on Windows and flappy beat on the iPhone there's even a mock one that you can play on the desktop it's called flappy Doge themed after the internet meme many pipes such difficulty so pointless Wow in other news Samsung just unveiled a new design for the current Galaxy s4 and s4 mini it's a new black edition with a fake leather textured back cover and bezel and all the accessories are black but don't rush to buy it just yet because in only a few weeks Samsung is expected to show off the next model the Galaxy s5 that takes place on February 24th during the Mobile World Congress Expo taking place in Barcelona that's your tech news update but you can find more details at cnet.com slash from our studios in New York I'm Bridget Carey