On Thursday of last week Rovio released its most recent installment in it’s mega hit game, Angry Birds. The game has been an instant hit, netting 10 million downloads over by Monday of this week. Insane numbers, even by Angry Birds standards. Angry Birds Space takes the fun out of the atmosphere utilizing new physics.

Angry Birds Space was release for Apple iOS, Android devices, PC and Mac. Specific details on the number of downloads were not released. I found it interesting that there was not a free version on iOS when released, iOS being one of Angry Birds’ most prominent platforms for the game.

Peter Farago, vice president of marketing at the mobile analytics firm Flurry said “The closest success story I can think of is OMGPOP’s Draw Something, which racked up 20 million total downloads in five weeks.” So 5 weeks compared to 4 days is the closest comparison. Whether you like the game or not you have to admit that is pretty amazing.

Overall, this installment of Angry Birds changes things by altering a world class physics machine. There is something to be said for the depth of Angry Birds. I admit, its a simple pick up and play game but how many clones have you seen that haven’t gotten it right? Certainly didn’t do 10 million downloads over a weekend. I’ll continue to play my Angry Birds and agree to disagree with the haters. Download it and try it out, $0.99 isn’t bad and 10 million downloads can’t be wrong.

However, taking a closer look at the new iPhone Developer Contract, there is another clause that is causing some consternation for advertising firms like AdMob, Analytics companies such as Flurry, and even individual app developers who like to analyse their customers gaming habits to provide a “better gaming experience”.

The crucial part of Section 3.3.9 of Apple’s new developers agreement states the following :

The use of third-party software in Your Application to collect and send Device Data to a third party for processing or analysis is expressly prohibited.

There are many ways to interpret this.

Firstly, if you are collecting your own analytics and not sending it to another party then you seem to be in the clear. This would be my interpretation anyway. Further subsections of the clause do state that you need to let your customers know about data you are collecting. But then this is fairly standard fare in a world where we are supposed to respect our customers privacy; something Apple takes very seriously.

Getting into the nuts and bolts of the wording a little further we need to figure out what “Device Data” means. Is this referring to an iPhone’s specifications and information such as it’s UDID (a unique identifier each iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad has)? Or is it also referring to any data generated by your app?

Either way it can be seen as giving iAds a competitive advantage over the likes of AdMob, and also hobbling analytics companies like Flurry and Distimo; who offer plugins as well as direct monitoring for developers so they can track app usage, as well as allow them to create wide ranging industry reports on app sales and usage for general consumption. In Distimo’s case they actually hook directly into your Developer Account at Apple. I would have to wonder how this is affected, if at all, by this clause – as your device is not sending any data back to them in that scenario.

In simple terms what this clause could mean is that AdMob may potentially not be able to produce targeted ads, whereas Apple’s own iAds would be able to. It could also mean that any analytics data that other companies might like to collate for general consumption, or on the app developers behalf, would not be as fine grained as it has been able to be in the past.

Peter Farago, who runs marketing for Flurry, has said that they are still trying to interpret exactly what the clause means, but feels that there will be a way to work with Apple moving forward. I would tend to agree with that analysis.

Apple, as they have done with 3.3.1, has set a base line they can fall back to in any disagreement with another party. How, and when they actually enforce the strict wording of this contract is entirely up to them.

Flurry goes on to say :

It’s too early to tell. No one’s freaking out. There’s more to understand about it, and we’re dialoguing with Apple about it, but it looks we may have to modify the way we collect and distribute information.

Do you feel that some of these companies have been too free and easy with your personal data in the past? Or do you think Apple is simply trying to unfairly crush any and all competition?

Let us know in the comments.

Flurry is a San Francisco-based analytics company that concentrates on the mobile space. They’ve recently released numbers indicating a sudden jump in iPhone OS development. Flurry tracks deployed and in-development applications through developers who incorporate their analytics package, a Neilsen system for apps if you will. According to a recent blog post entitled, Flurry Smartphone Industry Pulse, January 2010:

Flurry tracks over 20,000 live applications and over 2 billion user sessions each month. Applications that include Flurry Analytics have been downloaded to more than 80% of all iPhone, iPod Touch and Android devices.
So if anyone has the pulse on the course of mobile application development its Flurry.

In the same blog post Flurry reveals they tracked 1600 new iPhone application starts in January. That doesn’t seem remarkable taken by itself. However, they tracked only 600 new application starts in December. That’s almost a threefold increase in application starts in the course of one month. The explanation, of course, is iPad anticipation.

Any successful person knows that to be successful you don’t merely follow the crowd, you lead it. The huge increase in new application starts just goes to show that not only were foresighted developers anticipating the iPad, they were actively pursuing the opportunities it brings. The coming months should see a new, virtual gold rush as developers move on the opportunities the iPad brings. The primary participants? At this point I think the developers really delving into the iPad will be those creating games, eBooks, and content delivery platforms. Those are the three areas really targeted by the iPad. Others will follow but these three areas will be the real veins initially mined in this new gold rush.

Will the iPad bring a new boom of development for the iPhone/iPad platform? Will this boom bring a noticeable stratification between iPhone and iPad applications? Will you be participating in the gold rush? Leave us a comment and give your thoughts.

By: Erin Peterson