Apple got a head start on WWDC 2025 by announcing the winners of its annual Apple Design Awards today (June 3), as it looks to highlight some of best apps and games available in its App Store.
This year's edition features 12 winners picked by the App Store's editorial team, curated from a list of 36 finalists. The categories have changed over the years, but the 2025 iteration has the same categories as last year minus the spatial computing category for Apple Vision Pro apps. Returning categories include Delight and Fun, Inclusivity, Innovation, Interaction, Social Impact, Visuals and Graphics.
Each category sees two winners — an app and a game, so the six categories result in 12 awards. The winners aren't defined by downloads or revenue but by a commitment to innovation and ingenuity, Apple says.
The 2025 winners will be recognized during WWDC 2025, which starts next Monday (June 9). Here's the full list of winners, as well as a selection of our favorites we recommend you check out.
Apple Design Award 2025 list of winners
- Delight and Fun - CapWords by HappyPlan Tech
- Delight and Fun - Balatro by LocalThunk
- Innovation - Play by Rabbit 3 Times
- Innovation - PBJ — The Musical by Philipp Stollenmayer
- Interaction - Taobao by Zhejiang Taobao Network
- Interaction - DREDGE by Black Salt Games
- Inclusivity - Speechify by Speechify
- Inclusivity - Art of Fauna by Klemens Strasser
- Social Impact - Watch Duty by Sherwood Forestry Service
- Social Impact - Neva by Developer Digital
- Visuals and Graphics - Feather: Draw in 3D by Sketchsoft
- Visuals and Graphics - Infinity Nikki by Infold Games
Our top 7 favorite Apple Design Award 2025 winners
Balatro — Deckbuilding, rogue-like Poker
Balatro took the gaming world by storm last year. It was even one of our picks for the best video games of 2024. If you haven't played, the game fuses poker, solitaire and deck building where you combine joker cards with abilities to score points.
Don't let the poker scare you, the twists on the rules make it a familiar-but-fresh take on the card game. It's "one more round" on your iPhone or iPad.
Honorable Mention: CapWords turns images of objects into stickers to help you learn new languages. If you're practicing a new language this could be a fun way to change things up.
Play - accessible app development
Play is an app designed to help you create iPhone apps by letting you build prototypes in the Apple SwiftUI code. It was chosen for its intuitive interface to help app makers of all levels of experience collaborate and design. It can be synced between your Mac and your iPhone so you can move between devices as needed.
Honorable Mention: PBJ — The Musical is an interactive music game based on Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet. It features handcrafted paper figures and voice acting. It's clever and artistic.
DREDGE — existential horror whilst fishing
Dredge is an existential slow-burn horror game that has been available on other platforms for awhile. In fact, it was one of our favorite games that you might have missed in 2023. It only just got an excellent mobile port last year.
In the game, you play as a contract fisherman who catches normal fish by day for a remote island settlement, but by night the horrors of the deep fill your nets. It's a haunting mystery with an eerie world to explore.
And don't worry, it's not a gory or overly tense horror game, more disquieting.
Honorable Mention: Taobao is a shopping experience app design for the Vision Pro that lets you compare 3D models of products side by side.
Art of Fauna - beautiful puzzles
Art of Fauna is a cozy, beautiful, illustrated puzzle game where you solve puzzles by moving around visual elements or texts.
The puzzles are coupled with descriptions of the animals they depict. You can solve either the image or the text. It also promotes animal conservation and inclusivity.
Honorable Mention: Speechify is an app that reads text and turns it into audio. The app is meant to help people with dyslexia, ADHD and low vision, or for those who learn better by listening.
Watch Duty - keep safe from fires
During the devastating California wildfires at the start of the year, the Watch Duty app was indispensable for tracking what was happening with the Palisades and Eaton fires as they spread through those Los Angeles neighborhoods.
Through user and agency reports, the app shows fire perimeters and progress and evacuation orders.
Plus, it's free and subsists on donations.
Honorable Mention: Neva is absolutely gorgeous 2D platformer where a girl and her wolf, Neva, travel the world and fight against corrupted seasons. It's heartbreaking and beautiful and you should play it.
Feather: Draw in 3D - transform 2D into 3D
On one level, Feather is meant for designers and artists. At the same time, it's a delightful app that takes 2D images and renders them in 3D.
It's meant for people of all skills and enables you to create 3D models on the iPad using touch or the Apple Pencil features to create images.
You don't need to have an image to start as you can create things from scratch in the app as well.
Honorable Mention: Infinity Nikki is a cozy open-world game that continues the Nikki series which focuses magical outfits. Combat in the game is based on style duels and not physical.
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