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 soar to popularity, it's now been removed from the app stores by its creator.
The game hit the top of the charts for iTunes and 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 $50,000 a day.
The point of the game is to tap the screen to make your bird fly between green pipes that looked 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 wanna 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 to 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 clone of Flappy Bird.
There is
Flappy Pig in the Google Play store, there's FlappyFish on Windows, and Flappy B on the iPhone.
There is even a mock one that you can play on the desktop, it's called FlappyDoge themed after the internet meme.
Many pipes, such difficulty, so pointless, wow.
In other news, Samsung just unveiled the new design for the current Galaxy S4 and S4 Mini.
It's a new black edition with a fake leather texture 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/update.
From our studios in New York, I'm Bridget Carey.
