Apple recently announced the winners of its annual Apple Design Awards. The winning iPhone and iPad apps were selected in six different categories — inclusivity, delight and fun, interaction, social impact, visuals and graphics, and innovation — and they were crowned winners because, according to Susan Prescott, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide Developer Relations, they best embodied how apps “can be transformative, uplifting, or even provide an escape through creative gameplay.”
We’ve highlighted the six winning iPhone and iPad apps in each category below. Apple has awarded winning gaming apps in each of those six categories, as well. To see the full list of winners (including the gaming apps), you can check out Apple’s complete list of winners.
Category: Inclusivity
What is it? Procreate is a well-known drawing app for artists and illustrators. It gives you, the artist, access to hundreds of brushes, various painting effects and other creative effects. Available for iPhone and iPad.
Apple’s reason for selection: “Procreate, a world-class tool for artists and designers, brings people more creative power than ever through its iPad app. With new accessibility features — such as tremor and motion filtering, an in-app assistive touch menu, audio feedback, and color blindness settings — to augment its support of VoiceOver, Dynamic Type, and more, the app empowers more artists to create, interact, and express themselves.”
Price: $9.99
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Category: Delight and Fun
What is it? (Not Boring) Habits is a habit-tracking app that helps you build positive routines and break bad habits step-by-step. It’s unique because instead of being a daily to-do list where you check boxes, it turns it into a game where as you progress in your goal, it also teaches you new positive habits that will also stave off the bad ones.
Apple’s reason for selection: “As its (grammatically inventive) name suggests, (Not Boring) Habits adds a little flair to the mild-mannered habit tracker. With its sensational designs, playful haptics, and elegant gamification, this life hack adventure plays out as an inspiring journey through forests and mountains — it makes tracking habits a truly artistic experience.”
Price: $2/month
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Category: Interaction
What is it? Slopes is a ski-tracking app that helps you track your movement and your exercise while you ski or snowboarder. It tracks a lot of different metrics, including top speeds and number of runs, and it even provides you with a 2D map of your ski day.
Apple’s reason for selection: “Slopes, a seamless ski-tracking app experience, provides users with an intuitive skiing and snowboarding diary, employing the GPS on iPhone or Apple Watch to track distance and speed. Its best-in-class social features gamify the experience by connecting with friends and family — all by tapping a single button. The app is packed with a mountain of data but designed to be as easy to navigate as a run on the bunny slopes.”
Price: Free
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Category: Social Impact
What is it? This app showcases a collection of audio stories, each of which focuses on a remarkable woman, from both the past and the present, who has achieved something remarkable. Most of these stories run between 10 and 20 minutes, and are designed as soothing bedtime stories for children.
Apple’s reason for selection: “Rebel Girls shares the stories of the world’s most influential women — Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Simone Biles, and Frida Kahlo, to name just a few — through rich audio and gorgeous original art. The subjects span careers, cultures, and decades, and the voices and accompanying illustrations — all perfectly tailored for the stories and interface — are furnished by female and nonbinary artists from around the world.”
Price: $10/month (or $100/year)
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Category: Visuals and Graphics
What is it? Halide Mark II is an iPhone camera app that adds a number of pro features — including full manual control over the camera’s ISO, shutter speed and focus — that you can’t get on the default app. It also allows you to shoot macro photos, something you normally can only do if you have an iPhone 13 Pro.
Apple’s reason for selection: “The brilliant camera app Halide Mark II focuses on the essentials. This elegant tool packs tons of features into a remarkably easy-to-navigate interface; its uncluttered, smartly organized interface mimics a film camera. Every gesture will feel familiar to longtime photographers while remaining clear to those finding their way around focus and exposure settings. It’s a beautiful camera for iPhone — and now there’s a version designed specifically for iPad to help users create truly amazing visuals.”
Price: $10/year (or $30 one-time purchase)
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Category: Innovation
What is it? This is a beautiful audio app that pairs calming sounds with beautiful animations. It’s designed to replace the noisy and distracting sounds that populate your space so that you can better focus, mediate or even sleep.
Apple’s reason for selection: “The audio app Odio delivers incredibly lifelike ambient sounds — waterfalls, rushing rivers, lush electronic washes — made even more realistic with Spatial Audio and head tracking. Soundscapes can be customized by manipulating their mixes through a captivating circular interface, and each one is accompanied by futuristic fluid animations that unfold in perfect synchronicity with the sound. It’s a truly amplified take on the audiovisual experience.”
Price: Free
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