Flappy Bird will die with iOS11

Flappy Bird creator Doug Nguyen has effectively killed off Flappy Bird by declining to update the app to run on iOS 11.

Despite proving to be a runaway hit with 50 million downloads in less than a year, Nguyen has said he will not update the game for the new operating system, which does not support 32-bit apps.

Nguyen made the announcement on Facebook and thanked fans for their support over the years. He added: "My responsibility of supporting this app was finished since 2014. This is just my announcement for the current event."

Although he was rumored to have been earning $50,000 a day from the app at the height of its popularity, it's been a difficult ride for the independent developer and his surprisingly controversial game. In February 2014 he announced over Twitter that Flappy Bird would be removed from the app store, saying "I can't take this anymore."

The app proved so successful that Google and Apple took action to reject Flappy Bird clones flooding the online stores. Mere days after Flappy Bird was pulled from sale, four of the top ten games on the free App Store were directly inspired. On top of that copies of Nguyen's next app, Swing Copters, appeared in the app stores before it was even released.

Until now, users have been able to continue playing the game on iOS through backdoor means, but anyone wishing to cling on to Flappy Bird will have to forgo the update which promises a host of improvements to the app store.

Last quarter one-time and in-app purchase fees for 32-bit only accounted for $11.3 million of the firm's revenue, as little as 0.41%.