Played out: Apple now rejecting apps that attempt to ride Flappy Bird’s tailfeathers

It seems the App Store has reached peak “flappy.” According to TechCrunch, multiple developers report that Apple has started blanket-rejections of apps using the word in the name, and perhaps it’s for the best. Four of the top ten free apps on the store are Flappy Bird clones—including all of the top three. Granted, only two of those four apps includes the word “flappy” in the title, but they all follow a pretty basic naming scheme that’s easy to spot.

According to Apple, the apps are rejecting for “attempt[ing] to leverage a popular app.” Can’t really argue with that logic. It’s not the first time Apple has made sweeping rules for a very specific, popular app category. From the App Store review guidelines:

We have over 250,000 apps in the App Store. We don’t need any more Fart apps.

Maybe one day an updated version of the guidelines will request developers to lay off the flappy animal games, too. Like Apple, Google has made a similiar decision to block “flappy” apps from its Google Play Store.