WWDC24
Meet This Year’s Apple Design Award Winners
Each year, the Apple Design Awards celebrate the creative artistry and technical achievement of developers in the areas of design, innovation, and technology.
We’re thrilled to announce the winners for 2024.
Delight and Fun
Winners in this category provide memorable, engaging, and satisfying experiences enhanced by Apple technologies.
Bears Gratitude
Journaling apps don’t get much cuter than Bears Gratitude, a warm and welcoming way to maintain a daily gratitude practice. With inspired writing prompts, motivating daily reminders, and unbearably cute characters, the app is a simple way to celebrate all your accomplishments, no matter how small.
Meet the creator: Husband-and-wife team Isuru Wanasinghe and Nayomi Hettiarachchi came up with the idea for Bears Gratitude at the start of global lockdowns in 2020. “Drawing Bear with all his friends helped my own anxiety,” says Hettiarachchi, who is an illustrator. “It helped me appreciate the little things in my everyday life.”
NYT Games
With data-driven insights into your Wordle strategy, extensive stat-tracking, and the addition of the word-association game Connections, NYT Games continues to be the definitive daily habit for word lovers worldwide. And with Spelling Bee, Sudoku, The Mini crossword puzzles, and more, there’s an elegantly designed experience for everyone.
Meet the creator: The New York Times has been running crosswords in print since 1942 and introduced this puzzle app on the App Store in 2009. Longtime editor Will Shortz sees the app’s Hint and Reveal functions as “basically cheating,” he tells us, “but it doesn’t matter, because it’s your puzzle!”
Inclusivity
Winners in this category provide a great experience for all by supporting people from a diversity of backgrounds, abilities, and languages.
Oko
This AI-powered accessibility app helps those who are blind or have low vision safely cross the street. Point your iPhone camera toward an intersection and Oko will let you know, via haptic and audio feedback, when it’s safe to proceed—and if you need to hurry to beat the countdown.
Meet the creator: Founders Michiel Janssen, Vincent Janssen, and Willem Van de Mierop captured early training data for Oko themselves, testing the app “until our hands would freeze off,” Vincent says. “We had to make sure the experience for our users would be perfect.”
Crayola Adventures
Crayola Adventures and its colorful play areas set a new standard for inclusive, gender-neutral character creation. It has options for different skin tones, body types, and pronouns—and it goes further with full narration for nonreaders or those with reading challenges.
Meet the creator: Developer Red Games Co. was inspired to add inclusivity features by Crayola’s Colors of the World initiative, which introduced new shades representing the world’s diverse population.
Innovation
Winners in this category provide a state-of-the-art experience through novel use of Apple technologies that set them apart in their genre.
Procreate Dreams
Designed exclusively for iPad, Procreate Dreams helps artists of all levels create beautiful animations using the company’s signature hyperrealistic brushes. The intuitive Multi-touch Timeline lets you draw, keyframe, and edit in one place, guiding you through the animation process from start to finish.
Meet the creator: Founders James and Alanna Cuda, a husband-and-wife team based in Tasmania, believe art is for everyone. “With Procreate Dreams, you don’t need any prior knowledge to animate,” James says. “You can simply make a gorgeous picture and use your imagination to bring it to life.”
Available on iPad.
Lost in Play
An ordinary day becomes an amazing adventure for the sibling heroes of Lost in Play. Explore the blurred border between childhood imagination and reality as you solve clever puzzles and play charming mini-games—all while admiring the remarkable handcrafted visuals.
Meet the creator: Lost in Play is the first game fully developed by Tel Aviv–based indie studio Happy Juice. The game’s two protagonists—and the way they get lost in a make-believe world—were inspired by the children of Happy Juice cofounder Oren Rubin.
Interaction
Winners in this category deliver intuitive interfaces and effortless controls that are perfectly tailored to their platform.
Crouton
This meal planner and recipe manager serves up a delightful hands-free cooking experience. Once you start a recipe, you can navigate each step without touching your screen: Wink your right eye to move forward, your left eye to go back. Opening and closing your mouth brings up the ingredients list.
Meet the creator: Founder Devin Davies, an indie developer from New Zealand, built Crouton in the evenings while his three kids were asleep. “My favorite feature is the hands-free cooking mode,” Davies says. “I love seeing people’s reaction when they try it for the first time.”
Rytmos
You’ll do more than tap along in this clever rhythm game: As you solve Rytmos’ mazes, you’ll create musical loops that blossom into full compositions, layer by layer. Completing a level unlocks a musical instrument—like kalimba or vibraphone—that you can use to play along with the songs.
Meet the creator: Before Niels Böttcher and Asger Strandby of Floppy Club started making games, they were part of the Danish record label Jenka Music. “We are both huge music lovers and record collectors, and we wanted to share that passion for weird genres and instruments through Rytmos,” Strandby says.
Social Impact
Winners in this category improve lives in a meaningful way and shine a light on crucial issues.
Gentler Streak
With its focus on recovery as much as progress, this fitness tracker takes a holistic approach to physical and mental health. Gentler Streak is just as likely to remind you to take a break as it is to push yourself a little harder, all with a friendly, encouraging vibe.
Meet the creator: After suffering from injuries and burnout, members of Gentler Streak’s cofounding team—Jasna Krmelj, Katarina Lotrič, Andrej Mihelič, and Luka Orešnik—wanted to create a fitness app that respected the need for rest and recovery.
The Wreck
This artfully written interactive story explores a young woman’s life-or-death decision. Touching on themes of motherhood, sisterhood, and grief, it’s an illuminating tale about navigating stressful situations—and how one choice can change the course of our lives.
Meet the creator: Founded by former journalist Florent Maurin in 2009, Paris-based developer the Pixel Hunt specializes in interactive storytelling. The studio is best known for the text-messaging adventure Bury me, my Love and the App Store Award–winning game Inua.
Visuals and Graphics
Winners in this category feature stunning imagery, skillfully drawn interfaces, and high-quality animations that lend to a distinctive and cohesive theme.
Rooms
This nostalgic digital toy lets you express your interior-design vision in blocky, retro spaces. Deck out your room with adorable accessories—like neon fairy lights, old-school typewriters, and pixelated plants that grow taller when you tap them—and pick up some basic coding skills along the way.
Meet the creator: Rooms cofounders Nick Kruge, Bruno Oliveira, and Jason Toff set out to create the app they wish they’d had when they were kids. “Rooms isn’t quite a game, nor is it a tool—it’s more like a toy,” Toff says. “We’re building for ages 4 to 104.”
Lies of P
In this gritty action romp, guide a robotic puppet created by Geppetto (yes, that Geppetto) through a gorgeously rendered dilapidated city. With MetalFX upscaling, volumetric fog, and other spectacular technical flourishes, Lies of P turns a challenging, nostalgic adventure into a visual showstopper.
Meet the creator: Lies of P comes from South Korean developer Round8 Studio and publisher Neowiz. The game’s director, Choi Ji-won, says the team wanted to turn a familiar story on its head—and chose the tale of Pinocchio because of its compelling characters and events.
Available on Mac with Apple silicon.
Spatial Computing
Winners in this category brought extraordinary craftsmanship to their exceptional spatial experiences.
djay
On Apple Vision Pro, this DJ app puts the creative process in your hands more than ever. Grab a virtual record, place it on the turntable, and reach out to scratch or wave your arms in the air to apply a mesmerizing transition. The app’s immersive environments—including a spaceship lounge complete with dancing robots—bring the party to you.
Meet the creator: The app comes from the shared vision of three college friends who founded the studio Algoriddim. “It’s incredibly fulfilling to see how a personal hobby has grown into a global phenomenon,” says cofounder Karim Morsy. “Our innovative accessibility implementation, which allows visually impaired users to receive auditory cues through the DJ headphone channel, has made DJing truly accessible.”
Blackbox
Blackbox on visionOS challenges you to explore every corner of the spatial canvas—both literally and metaphorically. Pull one of the glowing bubbles floating in your space toward you, then move your body, make noise, or even play with the settings on your Vision Pro until you stumble upon the game’s secrets. Stretch your imagination to its limits—and discover clever Easter eggs at every turn.
Meet the creator: Blackbox’s floating bubbles grew out of creator Ryan McLeod’s desire to give the game a unique feel compared with the iPhone and iPad version—devices many players were already familiar with. “I wanted something a little floaty and magical but still grounded in reality,” he says.
Some apps are not available in all countries or regions, or on all devices.