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I think someone at Rovio is pissed...

At the bottom of this page at the Rovio website...

http://www.rovio.com/en/news/b... ...are four links to further information regarding privacy policies and FAQs, including a link to The New York Times privacy policy page...WTF?

http://www.nytimes.com/content...

If you'll scroll down the section titled "Analytics Technologies", you'll see that The New York Times uses Flurry to track their users, just like Rovio does.

"We use Localytics and Flurry to track and report on the usage and browsing patterns on some of our mobile applications." (my emphasis)

In light of the fact that The New York Times were one of the three media outlets that initially released the Snowden documents regarding Rovio tracking users of "Angry Birds" for the NSA, the irony of their articles only now becomes apparent.

I'm guessing Rovio added that link to the NYT privacy statement fairly recently (like, yesterday), but I don't have a cache of that page to know for sure.

But, yeah...Pot, meet Kettle.

I use www.rovio.com as a poster child of what a bad ToS reads like, Rovio uses the www.nytimes.com's privacy policy :} - to show it's "in fine company, or they aren't the only ones doing it. http://www.rovio.com/en/news/b... bottom of the list. www.rovio.com also taught me of Flurry.com - one thing about www.rovio.com they covered everybody in the chain, very helpful editing one's HOSTS file. Missing of course: "overseas".

After reading Rovio's ToS - to opt out is done by cookies, you can never remove another cookie, it's best to use a HOSTS file - except for www.Flurry.com which is Google's on-line Analytics. To block Flurry.com you must request to opt out (I can't find the address for obvious reasons - Google: flurry.com opt out

You will need a rather hard to find mobile number "Android ID" is required for that https://play.google.com/store/... contrary to a review posted you don't opt out of www.rovio.com this way, use a router firewall, which your most likely using to connect to the Internet with and add www.rovio.com.

Each time you Change Roms, unlock, root, jail break or whatever you call owning your mobile device you will need to opt out from Flurry.com again (your ID will of changed).

It's a lot to type; but if you stayed with it and it help you, worth it.

It's not enough to log out, you have to wipe the cookies, too. Google sets a lot of them and then there are Google-related sites like Youtube which also set Cookies. I'm not sure how much these other sites share Cookies with Google, but I wouldn't trust them on it.

It's much more than not logging in to block tracking, just one step. Web Beacons are the concern logging in or reading html email.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_beacons running a huge a$$ HOSTS file is also very important.

Ever hear of flurry http://flurry.com/ https://top.robtex.com/flurry.com.html#records
that's a biggie to block. It's Google analytics, for a price they provide advertisers
user demographics and what ads to send to you.

Mostly used for mobile devices Flurry.com will let you opt-out if you give them your device ID.
http://www.flurry.com/user-opt-out.html every time I change the OS on my rooted Xoom tablet the ID changes
so I block it at the router level (just got a new router with firewall). Also your device ID isn't all that easy to find.
- for Android > play.store look for: Device ID

Read the ToS, Privacy Policy at http://rovio.com/ it explains in detail what angry birds does with your collected data.
One is they send your info to Flurry.com who in return sends them prospective clients.

----

Here's a good one... Read the ToS at http://flurry.com/ you'd never know it was Google.
I registered at http://testmy.net/ to keeps a data base of my connection rates; of course I read their terms of service,
it led you to https://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/?fg=1

There was a thread about tracking I happened on after my registration, the operator of that site
replied to the thread mentioning he was very happy to be working for Google, it was a good company.
I replied that it's odd your so up front about being part of Google yet one would never know through the ToS
http://flurry.com/ was Google as well. Now reading the ToS you'd never know http://testmy.net/ is part of Google. :}
unless you went to Robtex.com https://top.robtex.com/testmy.net.html#records

Yes Google provides a service and expects something in return, they can have my searches and the links
I visit, as I find them through Google. But I don't need Google+ shoved not only in my face, but into my lifel
Google+ isn't a service it's totally different.

Yawn, ignoring the obvious, it's this part that is of real concern and what your missing:

"The rootkit scanners for Linux are few and poor. If you're lucky, you'll know how to use
chkrootkit (but you can use strings and other tools for analysis) and show the strings of
binaries on your installation, but the results are dependent on your capability of deciphering
the output and performing further analysis with various tools or in an environment such as Remnux Linux.
None of these free scanners scan the earlier mentioned areas of your PC, either!
Nor do they detect many of the hundreds of trojans and rootkits easily available on popular
websites and the dark/deep web."

The loss of this site: http://vx.netlux.org/ was a loss to everybody.

A place one could download the latest malware to see what it would do, now we have
malware businesses who might now mention a malware's name but little else.
Very very few people can find much of malware in use now.

Rootkits? I'm sure many are running them now; unless one can have access to sites
like http://vx.netlux.org/ to have even a little chance of finding out or even knowing.

(my pet peevee)
Here, ever play Angry BIrds? read their Privacy policy
http://www.rovio.com/Privacy
and think of how long you've been playing it.

I got a fantastic deal on a Motorola Xoom (10" screen), now running
Android 4.1 and I've rooted it myself.

When my computer went down I used the Xoom to surf and search for
a new mother board. I use a used bluetooth keyboard that
cost $10 at Goodwill; it's very nice, small in size yet large keys.

I got tired of it quick, not sure why, miss a mouse (?). I put a spare
computer together to used until the motherboard showed up.
I hope I never have to rely solely on a tablet again.

If one is going to use a tablet and it's locked or doesn't allow
say a HOSTS file to be installed, It really needs to be rooted.

Read this Privacy Policy http://www.rovio.com/Privacy this is the
norm for unrooted cell phones, tablets, and future UEFI protected OS's.
It's for Angry Birds, one would think they would make it a free program
seeing how much personal information is collected and the tracking they do.

http://www.rovio.com/Privacy is a favorite example of mine, I've mentioned it
on many occasions as most don't read nor care about ToS's. This ToS is
the same for most programs now. A direct quote from that link "Please note
that certain features of the Services may be able to connect to your social
networking sites to obtain additional information about you."

My HOSTS file for my PC is almost 600K and I thought that was huge
The HOSTS file for a rooted device is over 900K (Adaway).

Root the device or at the very least download and run Android_ID
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bzgames.androidid&feature=search_result
Get your number and paste it here http://www.flurry.com/user-opt-out.html
-Android assumed

I got a fantastic deal on a Motorola Xoom (10" screen), now running
Android 4.1 and I've rooted it myself.

When my computer went down I used the Xoom to surf and search for
a new mother board. I use a used bluetooth keyboard that
cost $10 at Goodwill; it's very nice, small in size yet large keys.

I got tired of it quick, not sure why, miss a mouse (?). I put a spare
computer together to used until the motherboard showed up.
I hope I never have to rely solely on a tablet again.

If one is going to use a tablet and it's locked or doesn't allow
say a HOSTS file to be installed, It really needs to be rooted.

Read this Privacy Policy http://www.rovio.com/Privacy this is the
norm for unrooted cell phones, tablets, and future UEFI protected OS's.
It's for Angry Birds, one would think they would make it a free program
seeing how much personal information is collected and the tracking they do.

http://www.rovio.com/Privacy is a favorite example of mine, I've mentioned it
on many occasions as most don't read nor care about ToS's. This ToS is
the same for most programs now. A direct quote from that link "Please note
that certain features of the Services may be able to connect to your social
networking sites to obtain additional information about you."

My HOSTS file for my PC is almost 600K and I thought that was huge
The HOSTS file for a rooted device is over 900K (Adaway).

Root the device or at the very least download and run Android_ID
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bzgames.androidid&feature=search_result
Get your number and paste it here http://www.flurry.com/user-opt-out.html
-Android assumed

Read their Privacy Policy http://www.rovio.com/Privacy and know that you agree to all
third parties, like Flurry.com (Google analytics), as well as your data being sent out of county.
Astro file manager read the same way,

I had to root for a HOSTS file and firewall.

You know what permissions to allow a program by reading the ToS, (Terms of Service),
and I may be one of the few people that does this. The ToS will send you to their Privacy Policy
which is really what you need to read (Privacy Policy trumps the ToS).

With a Cell Phone or Tablet you have no control over your system, unless rooted which
I for one required, while I allow permissions, I also block them (HOSTS file).
(To the Anonymous Coward who showed me how to slip a HOSTS file through a rooted phone - thanks again)

The two most important permissions to me are superuser and Full internet access.
Allowing Tracking to me it's exactly dangerous but to me very close.

Using Angry Birds (rovio.com) is an example of abusing the full internet access permission:

Angry Birds Privacy Policy: http://www.rovio.com/Privacy
they use www.flurry.com for analytics

Flurry.com also has a privacy policy: http://www.flurry.com/privacy-policy.html
That you are agreeing to when you agree to Angry Birds:

Both parties (Angry Birds, Flurry-analytics) use web beacons
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_bug to track everything you do while accessing
the network via your unrooted device.

Flurry.com knows when and who (you, your spouse, kids or which friend) checked
their email last from your Internet connection/router/WiFi. As they do collect identifiable information.

rovio.com also send "some" collected data out of country , other countries
aren't required to supply ToS's - so you no clue what's to become of that.
X-plorer is a good example using both of my important permissions and not one word
of how they handle data or if they even collect it, or if they are going to upload a program my way.

All of the above is unacceptable to me, it's beyond tracking and into following "for personalized ads".
The Target store for one may very well know your daughter is pregnant before you.
http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/02/17/1927229/how-companies-learn-your-secrets

The above is the norm for what the Cell Phone, Tablet, and such. On PC's one (I at least)
would never install something with those conditions. Games from the android stores
have some of the worst ToS I've ever read. While Angry Birds is a good example
ASTRO file manager reads the same way.

Angry Birds is a bad example. When Angry Birds first came out, there was an official list of 20 Android phones that it wouldn't support, including some then current phones.

Right now they claim there are some Android phones that it doesn't support.

http://www.rovio.com/en/support/faq&support_device=Android

So this type of app runs fine on all devices (for now), a better example would be when Rovio could not support Angry Birds on all Android devices because of performance worries. And what if Netflix implements some feature or eye-candy in a future version that would cause problems for some phones ? Then their customers would feel cheated, like Netflix dropped them. A PR disaster waiting to happen and Netflix' brand is one of their most important assets, far better from their standpoint to err on the side of caution.

> some Android games have adjustable graphics
> settings for different hardware, but Apple deems
> that to be "fragmentation."

They deem it fragmentation because there are some big popular Android games that don't run on many popular Android handsets. So if by "adjustable" you mean "will not run at all" then yes, adjustable graphics are the answer. (And as anyone who has played it knows, Angry Birds is not even close to the pinnacle of hardware-intensive games.)

all that and you ignored the basic premise that adding 13 to 100 doesn't double your total?

I didn't comment on the basic premise -- I commented on the fact that everything that was said in the original post was demonstrably shown as incorrect.

It doesn't matter how many Android users there are to third party developers, but how many are actually willing to buy stuff. As much as Slashdotter's hate to believe that Android's "fragmentation" is not a problem and makes it a less attractive platform. The truth is different.

Again take Angry Birds -- the best selling mobile app in the world. It is compatible with every iOS device that has ever existed. On the other hand.....

There are at least 18 different phones that are not supported by Rovio, including some that were still selling.

http://www.rovio.com/index.php?mact=Blogs,cntnt01,showentry,0&cntnt01entryid=47&cntnt01returnid=58

Apple is having amazing growth in smartphones also and the inclusion of more carriers in the US may help them some. I know a lot of people who just won't do business with AT&T even for an iPhone. There are a lot of Verizon customers who would like to give it a go. The share numbers don't exactly tell the whole tale either as the market for smartphones is also growing at an amazing pace. Apple makes a lot of money on every phone, they're selling a huge number of phones, and they're having huge growth. They should see a good bump when they open up to other carriers in the US. Their vast economies of scale are saving them on the Cost Of Goods Sold also. Any time Apple wants to take market share from Android all they have to do is indulge in that fragmentation bugaboo that seems to not be holding Android back and offer a variety of phones with different feature sets and price points for the folk who aren't a good fit for The iPhone. Frankly I hope they don't - they're consuming a large enough share of the world's production capacity for displays and Flash memory already.

But Google and Apple are not Microsoft. Neither of them has taken the position that for them to win everybody else has to lose. Their goal is not to own the market and use their dominance to suppress progress like it's some tech version of King of the Hill. Apple is going to take for the most part the premium end of the business and Android will take the volume. They'll each get a chunk of RIM's enterprise share. Every developer worth their salt is writing for both platforms now so they're getting some app-fusion going on. In the end there will be a lot more Android phones than Apple phones if for no other reason than not everybody in the world can afford an iPhone and the iPhone feature set doesn't meet everybody's needs and can't, no matter how awesome that feature set is because people have conflicting needs. Some people need battery life, some daylight-readable displays, some huge storage, some need low price, some need a physical keyboard, some want the thinnest possible phone. Apple will get a bunch of dollars, Google will get many more dimes and it will work out well for both. They'll both innovate as fast as they can to compete with each other, so we all win.

Everybody else though? It sucks to be you. You can't have the premium end, you can't have the volume end. You can't crack enough market share to get good developers because one cheesy breakout app on iOS and Android (Angry Birds) moved 50 million units and that's the KaChing lotto developers are looking for. You can't get the mobile ad dollars either. If you create a niche hardware feature it'll be on an Android phone in six months. If you create a useful evolution of the user interface it'll be a UI skin available on both iOS and Android with a dozen competing versions in three weeks ranging in price from ten dollars to free, and the developers will make more money on the skin than you will on the platform. Apple and Google have between them got this thing sewn up. Just to make it completely unfair those app and media stores and the Google home page are awesome places from which to sell the next generation products that latecomers are not going to have access to.

Tablets? I don't see any reason why the same story shouldn't play out there. Android's getting a late start like it did with phones, but there's only one iPad just like there's only a couple models of iPhone. There are hundreds of Android slates coming out to hit every price point and feature desired. They're not quite too late to the party. Apple should get the premium end again with the lion's share of the profits at a good margin because they have the innovator's advantage, the product is damn good, and the iPad 2 will be even better. Android should get the volume again and have to work harder for their money but rake it in too. By the time a credible third player shows up we

"Yes, it's much better to have a single organization that can decide for me what apps I can decide to buy and sell. One that can block apps for any reason or no reason at all."

And yet over 70,000,000 iPhones have been sold since 2007 all at $200+ (compared to free Android phones with contract) and there have been thousands of iPhone developers that have become millionaires due to app sales while even Angry Birds struggles with Android fragmentation with over a dozen Android devices Angry Birds will NOT work on.

I appreciate the spunky Android upstart trying to compete with the big dog iOS but Android has some huge obstacles to overcome if even major players like Angry Birds is frustrated with Android and EA offers 60+ iOS apps but only a dozen Android games.

I'm referring to phones that, for example, have an 800+ MHz processor, or more than a certain amount of ram.

Like I said, it's the same thing as an iPhone...some games just plain don't work on a first or second gen iPhone. If you're confused by something as simple as clock speed, then stick with an iPhone.

Regular users' eyes gloss over the moment you mention processor speed and memory on *computers*, let alone phones. If they know a bit about it, they know from computers that higher MHz/GHz is generally better, but *we* know that's about as useful a metric as megapixels on a digital camera.

So now you expect them to look up an app and check its CPU/RAM requirements, as well as screen size and other features, against their phone (or *potential* phone if they're shopping for one)?

Angry Birds developers at least maintains a list of Android devices they *dont* support, which is a better way to approach this--there's still far fewer phone models than possible computer configurations.

iOS developers can (and do) easily state what devices they *do* support, then the only variable is what OS version they're running.

Apple's only real failing here is not physically marking different generations devices (computers and iOS devices both) the way they refer to them in documentation. I have no idea how to quickly distinguish between an iPhone 3G or 3GS, or any of the iPod touches (except for the 4th gen with its Retina display), and a normal user won't remember.

read between the lines.. and read the line you included in your post:

what the hell does this mean, and how is Steam for Android going to help?

"300 or 400 SKU's that they had to for all the worldwide feature phone splits that we had from our four base versions" ...while not FEATURE phones, there have to be at least 100 SKU's running some flavor of Android. Steam will address the download cap, but how does Steam make cutting edge graphics run well on older machines?

Angry Birds guys have addressed this already:
http://www.rovio.com/index.php?mact=Blogs,cntnt01,showentry,0&cntnt01entryid=47&cntnt01returnid=58

Check out the comments here on the Angry Birds blog. Fragmentation is a problem for Android. People want apps that work well, and they'll go wherever they can get that, even if that means using a censored app store. Is the Android app store censorship free? Isn't it normal for companies to not promote their competitor's products?

Despite all the evil things that either company does, it saddens me when people still show their support and say "keep up the good work." Society is largely apathetic to any issue. Is the last straw ever going to come? I hope so.

You know a lot of people have turned the price of a Mac and their $99 Developer Program expenses into a shit ton of cash.

Sure, you could try the same trick on Android, but even though there are more Android phones sold now, Apple's App Store accounts for 92% of the cell phone application store bucks spent. App Store coders like me certainly won't miss the competition, anyway, so yeah, stick to your plan of not developing for the iOS. That's the best advice I can give you.

Don't forget about the headaches that come with programming for the platform. Angry Birds developers also have come out to say, in many words and with a lot of cact, what a headache it is to develop for the fragmented hardware platform.

What the fuck is a fragmented hardware platform?

Stop drinking the koolaid.

You know a lot of people have turned the price of a Mac and their $99 Developer Program expenses into a shit ton of cash.

Sure, you could try the same trick on Android, but even though there are more Android phones sold now, Apple's App Store accounts for 92% of the cell phone application store bucks spent. App Store coders like me certainly won't miss the competition, anyway, so yeah, stick to your plan of not developing for the iOS. That's the best advice I can give you.

Don't forget about the headaches that come with programming for the platform. Angry Birds developers also have come out to say, in many words and with a lot of cact, what a headache it is to develop for the fragmented hardware platform.

recall the magnet explosion last year that shut down the LHC for a year?

I'm currently playing Angry Birds on my phone, so, yes, hilariously.

BTW, I highly recommend both the LHC and Angry Birds. The latter is highly playable, apparently the physics are correct (at least, the gravity is, not so sure about feathered-friend vs. oaken plank) and all puzzles are solvable at the maximum bonus if you have the touch.

recall the magnet explosion last year that shut down the LHC for a year?

I'm currently playing Angry Birds on my phone, so, yes, hilariously.

BTW, I highly recommend both the LHC and Angry Birds. The latter is highly playable, apparently the physics are correct (at least, the gravity is, not so sure about feathered-friend vs. oaken plank) and all puzzles are solvable at the maximum bonus if you have the touch.