'Angry Birds' iPhone, iPad Speakers Coming in October

Accessories maker Gear4 is releasing a lineup of Angry Birds speaker docks for the iPhone, iPod, and iPad, featuring speaker units shaped like everyone's favorite furious fowls.

The company is releasing three separate Angry Birds units: a Red Bird, a Black Bomb Bird, and a helmet-wearing evil pig. All models can connect to any audio device with an auxiliary cable, and each speaker gets its own special dock to prop up your iPhone or iPad. Each unit includes a 2.1 speaker, a power adaptor, and a 3.5 mm port to connect to any music player.

Each of the speakers has its own special feature. The $79 Red Bird speaker connects to any device with an auxiliary cable and props up the device in its own stand. The $99 evil pig features two stereo speakers and a subwoofer, and can charge any iPod or iPhone on its helmet; yet, the system only works with these devices, so the iPad users won't want the pig. On the other hand, the $99 Black Bird can easily keep your iPad (or iPhone or iPod Touch) charged on a separate dock, and also features the pig's two stereos and subwoofer combination.

Since developer Rovio Mobile released the game on Dec. 10, 2009, Angry Birds has sold over 12 million copies from Apple's App Store. The game has been reproduced for other platforms like the Android Market, Palm's App Catalog, and Google Chrome's Web Store, and as a result the game is the No. 1 paid app in 67 countries. With over 350 million downloads worldwide, Angry Birds is one of the most successful game franchises of all-time.

The original game follows a loose storyline, where multi-colored birds are out to retrieve eggs that have been stolen by a group of evil green pigs. In each level, users have to slingshot the birds, each with their own special abilities, into a variety of structures that house the pigs. The objective is to eliminate all of the pigs, either by damaging the structures or hitting the pigs directly.

Currently there are three iterations of the game: the classic Angry Birds game, and two special editions called Angry Birds Seasons and Angry Birds Rio. Angry Birds Seasons features holiday-themed levels for Halloween, Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, Easter, and Christmas, while the latter game, Angry Birds Rio, was released as a promotional tie-in with the 20^th Century Fox animated film Rio.

The original Angry Birds features 285 individual levels, while Seasons features 190 levels and Rio has 150 levels. Rovio's North American general manager Andrew Stalbow says there's a chance we might see the birds on a much bigger screen.

Hollywood is hot for the [Angry Birds] brand, Stalbow said at TechCrunch Disrupt. There's a very strong focus on Angry Birds to turn it into an entertainment franchise. That's why I joined.

The popular game has spawned a countless array of cookbooks, plush toys, t-shirts, board games, pillows, decal skins, phone casings, posters, and more. Now, Angry Birds fanatics can add speaker docks to their collections.

Gear4 will release its Angry Birds speaker dock line-up later in October.