On Monday, Apple announced the apps and games that won the 2022 App Store Awards, which included 16 titles across the company’s various platforms.
Each year, the App Store’s editorial teams from around the world jointly highlight a series of outstanding apps and games. Prizes are always divided across Apple platforms, and are also divided into applications and games. The 2022 Awards include a new category: Cultural Impact.
“This year’s App Store award winners have reimagined our experiences with apps that offer fresh, thoughtful, and real perspectives,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a statement. “From self-taught content creators to international teams spread across the globe, these entrepreneurs are making a meaningful impact and exemplifying the ways apps and games impact our communities and lives.”
Although some of the applications that won the award are recent, others have been on Apple devices for years, such as: the GoodNotes 5 application, which won first place among iPad tablet applications for the year 2022, and was launched for the first time in 2011.
The list of 2022 winning apps includes BeReal, which won Best iPhone App, GoodNotes 5 as Best iPad App, MacFamilyTree 10 for Mac PCs, ViX: Cine y TV en Espanol for TV, Apple TV, and finally Best. App for Apple Watch, Gentler Streak.
As for the list of winning games for this year, they include Apex Legends Mobile for iPhone, Moncage for iPad, Inscryption for Mac, El Hijo for TV, and Wylde Flowers for Apple Arcade.
With regard to the new cultural impact category that Apple added to this year’s awards, it includes applications that the company says have “made a lasting impact on people’s lives and culture.” Take the How We Feel app, for example, developed by Pinterest co-founder Ben Silberman in collaboration with a scientific team led by Dr. Mark Brackett of the Yale University Center for Emotional Intelligence.
The list of winning social impact apps in 2022 includes the aforementioned apps, Dot’s Home, Locket Widget Waterllama, Water Tracker, and finally Inua – A Story in Ice and Time.
In addition, each App Store Award winner receives a trophy in the form of an aluminum App Store icon. Apple did not reveal when the winners would receive the prizes, but in previous years, they would receive them about a week after announcing the names of the winners.