Games and apps that use the word Flappy, to take advantage of the popularity of Flappy Bird searches are being rejected by Apple and Google. Since its meteoric rise and dramatic removal, many clones and unrelated apps have flooded stores, many of which are misleadingly named, and some are reported to include malware.
It’s not clear that either the App Store or Google Play are removing apps already available, but they are not accepting new ones with Flappy in the title. Developer Mind Juice Media tweeted that their app Flappy Dragon was rejected for attempting to ‘leverage a popular app.’ This is good news for users, as it’s not helpful having stores full of apps that essentially try to trick users.
Hopefully both stores will start to apply this will all popular apps – from Angry Birds to Minecraft, there are almost endless apps that ‘leverage popular app’ names, and it doesn’t look good, while making it harder for users to find the app they really want. Searching for Flappy Bird will show you plenty of games and apps like Flappy Bee, Flappy Plane, Flappy Super Hero and Flappy Flyer.
