Rovio: lightweight Angry Birds for slow Android mobiles
updated 05:45 am EST, Fri November 19, 2010
More evidence of Android platform fragmentation?
Rovio Mobile has announced that it is developing a lightweight version of its hugely popular physics game Angry Birds for Android. According to the company, they had overwhelming demand for the game from users of older versions of the Android OS often also running on slower hardware. The gameplay should remain the same, but the software will be optimized for devices with lower processing power and older versions of the OS.
The move by Rovio is likely to fan the flames on the debate about the fragmentation of the Android platform. Apple CEO Steve Jobs criticized the platform for its fragmentation. He cited the problems that TweetDeck has had in trying to develop a Twitter client for Android that required its software to support 100 different combinations of Android, custom UIs and over 240 devices.
Netflix also recently cited similar problems when trying to develop a universal Android client for its services. However, Google CEO Eric Schmidt just in this past week denied that fragmentation was a problem for Android. [via Android Community]
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Joined: Mar 2010
7 Million copies installed
According to Rovio, Angry Bird has been downloaded more than 7 million times for Android devices - http://www.talkandroid.com/22230-angry-birds-hits-7-million-android-downloads/