Apple and Rovio have paired up to give away Angry Birds Rio for the iPhone and iPad for free this week, as part of Apple's 'Free App of the Week' promotion.

The game is normally $0.99 for the iPhone and $2.99 on the iPad.

Carnival

Angry Birds Rio brought more of the same bird-flinging action that we all are quite familiar with by now, but also threw a couple of new very welcome twists into the formula. First and foremost are the boss fights, which were a first for the Angry Birds series and have you squaring off against the main antagonists from the Rio movie. The game also utilized more advanced graphics and recently was updated with tons of new power-ups and support for the widescreen of the iPhone 5.


Angry Birds Rio is free for a limited time on the iPhone and iPad from the App Store. [Direct link: iPhone/iPad]

Top Rated Comments

needfx Avatar
146 months ago
Developers get paid from small ads in the game.

FREE

adds in game = horrible user experience
Score: 18 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Moonjumper Avatar
146 months ago
I wish the Free App of the Week would feature some hidden gems rather than promote games that are already successful.

In a market where discoverability is a big issue, concentrating on the apps we already know is a wasted opportunity.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
mabhatter Avatar
146 months ago
Developers get paid from small ads in the game.

FREE

I'd rather pay a small amount than spend time watching ads. If I recall, in the ad version you have to click on the ad screen between every few retries.

Of course this is Angry Birds. The games are just a loss leader for all the merchandizing going on... $.99 is nothing compared to the cut they get from all the swag in stores.

----------

Angry Birds Rio is kind of a dead end anyway. Unless they make another movie, all the levels are finished up and Rovio is done adding to it. But hey! Free Angry Birds for the "Pig Popper Pad"!
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ArtOfWarfare Avatar
146 months ago
Developers get paid from small ads in the game.

FREE
Yes, I bet you've made lots of free apps and made lots of money from ads.

No, ad revenue is a lie. Top ranking apps can make money from ads. No one else can. I have hundreds of thousands of regular users for my free app with ads and an IAP to remove ads. I made $10 in 2012, $3 from ads and $7 from users removing the ads.

In contrast, I made $200 and $8000 from my $1 and $2 apps, respectively. Certainly, quality plays a roll, but I spent twice as many months polishing my free app as I did my $1 app.

I'm never making the mistake of releasing an app users don't have to pay for again... you can get a taste for free, maybe, but getting more than 25% is certainly going to cost money.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
mrxak Avatar
146 months ago
As per my standard policy, I've downloaded this for iPhone and iPad while it's free, even though I have zero interest in it currently. I never turn down something free that won't be free forever.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
keysofanxiety Avatar
146 months ago
Shod have always been free.

It is on Android

I agree. I love how games just manage to develop themselves, without any need for silly things like 'paying the programmers'.

It should always have been free! £0.69 is a disgrace! :rolleyes:
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)

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