This is a bit disingenuous.

1. It did not pass Angry Birds, but Angry Birds Seasons Free, which is a relatively new app.

2. The Free app list is more volatile in general.

Still, congrats to the developer on becoming so visible so quickly.

Off-topic: It's one thing to be inspired by Apples web design, but to completely rip it off is in bad taste.

Who really cares, as long as they're not infringing copyrights? This site design may have been tested to work for attracting their audience and converting interested eyeballs into sales.

They are not selling a continuous service or "lifestyle" product, so I'm not sure if they would benefit from having a site with a unique visual identity.

At $349, the Corona SDK is not a cheap product in a world where most development kits have become free... Looking like Apple may be just the simplest way of reassuring their customers that they're getting something that fits the Mac development environment like a glove.

The web design almost turned me off completely from investigating Corona further. Then again, I come from a web design background, so I may be more sensitive to that than others. Fortunately for Corona, the actual product does seem to be the best for what I'm looking for.

It's a dashcode output (aka the free web design thingy that comes with XCode).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dashcode

Apple makes the tool that makes websites look like that.

I cannot find this template in Dashcode. Does it use Blueprint CSS framework too?

Aha! Good to know. They could still use a designer to actually design their site, but it's nice that they didn't just elect to steal a design.

Um....that's a fairly typical dashcode output. You're being high and mighty about a website design from an apple tool that comes for free with XCode.

No no no. To rip it off and then make it worse is in bad taste.

Was thinking exactly the same thing. Who do they think they're fooling?

Sigh...I will be the first to admit that I looked at the link for 2 seconds and assumed it was some kind of Apple Library/IDE I'd never heard of (I do zilch iphone dev cut me some slack.)

Good thing this is the internet and not your grandmother's tea party.

"As of January 14, it has gotten 1,571,213 downloads!"

That's about two weeks that the app has been out. Incredible.

Yes it is... more so when you try to play it, which I did just now. It isn't bad, but I also wouldn't call it a great game. I just don't understand the popularity...

I'll pretty much download anything new that pops up on the free list. A lot of it is junk that gets deleted fast, but if other people are doing the same...

Free and downloaded isn't the same as free and replayed.

I download Xbox Live demos of almost everything, I may only buy 1/100 that I try (exaggeration). I'm sure this game has some modicum of popularity, but you can only truly tell by longevity when something is being served to you for free.

also interesting that the android version only has 1000 to 5000 downloads.

That is absolutely amazing. I struggle to get hundreds of downloads each day of my free apps...

Does anyone have any experience using corona? How well does it work, how full featured is it, etc?

I've used it for a few apps and am generally happy with it. Search for Wetwork or ConsultUtah in the app store to see what I've done.

I definitely congratulate anyone that can make that kind of headway. It makes me feel extremely humble that I can't get anywhere near the results that this 14 year old has... ;-)

Here is a great follow-up review from someone that has had success in writing iphone apps with Corona: http://jonbeebe.tumblr.com/post/2726165170/corona-sdk-revisi...

Great article, thanks!

I'm curious about the same thing. I've done some research and generally I'm more impressed with Corona games than most of the other framework style games, but I'd definitely like to hear another HNers feedback.

I'm glad to see other tools for RAD succeeding but after trying it I don't know that it is the most polished game and probably wouldn't survive if it wasn't free (almost hate saying that about a 14-year-old's game).

It's an excellent name and I wish I had thought of it. People seem to like the word "bubble" in the app store. Not sure why, but there is definitely a trend there if you look into it.

Will "Bubble %s" become the new "Doodle %s" for copycat games? It's interesting to watch the popularity of certain, seemingly random, words in copycat game titles.

Interesting. I´ve found better, free ¨physics¨ games in the past with simple exercises in kinematics. The engine seems slightly off from my limited playing after seeing this article, and the graphics almost detract from the game. It´s just odd that this particular game ended up with so much popularity.

I wonder if he did anything to market it. He's either incredibly good or incredibly lucky.