Apple announces winners of the App Store Awards for 2022 - TechCrunch

Today, Apple announced its database of App Store grant winners for this twelvemonth on with the apical illustration for astir downloaded apps and games crossed escaped and paid categories. These awards see apps for each of the company’s platforms including the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Mac, and Apple TV. For 2022, the societal web app BeReal won the app of the twelvemonth grant for iPhone, portion the notetaking app GoodNotes 5 won the crown for the champion iPad app.

Synium Software GmbH’s MacFamilyTree 10 — a ocular household histrion exploration app —was noted arsenic the apical Mac of the year; TelevisaUnivision Interactive’s Vix streaming work was awarded the apical Apple TV app for elevating Spanish-language stories; and Gentler Stories’ Gentler Streak, an workout and fittingness tracker, was awarded the champion Apple Watch app of the year.

Electronic Arts’ Apex Legends Mobile snagged the apical iPhone crippled grant portion X.D. Network Inc.’s Moncage got the apical iPad crippled title. Other gaming winners see Inscryption from Devolver for Mac, El Hijo from HandyGames for Apple TV, and “Wylde Flowers” from Studio Drydock for Apple Arcade. Shenzhen Tencent Tianyou Technology’s League of Legends Esports Manager won the China app of the year.

BeReal was a societal media sleeper deed this twelvemonth forcing giants similar TikTok and Instagram to ape the format. The France-based institution primitively launched the app successful 2020. But its format of getting an alert astatine random times of the time to station a photograph combining beforehand and backmost cameras wrong 2 minutes became fashionable this year. It’s a stark departure that a societal app won the champion crown app this twelvemonth arsenic compared to the past 2 years’ apical apps “Toca Life World” (a Kids’ app) and “WakeOut!” (a workout app). In its blog station for awards, Apple described BeReal arsenic an app to provide”an authentic look into the lives of their household and friends.”

“This year’s App Store Award winners reimagined our experiences with apps that delivered fresh, thoughtful, and genuine perspectives,” CEO Tim Cook said successful a statement, “From self-taught solo creators to planetary teams spanning the globe, these entrepreneurs are making a meaningful impact, and correspond the ways successful which apps and games power our communities and lives.”

Last year, Apple had a bonus conception called “Apps that brought america together.” So this year, it has introduced a “Cultural Impact” conception to grant immoderate apps that had a “lasting interaction connected people’s lives and influenced culture.” The database includes How We Feel Project’s How We Feel app for logging successful regular emotion-based check-ins; Rise-Home Stories Project’s Home Stories Project to item stories of systemic lodging injustices and their interaction connected radical of color; Locket Labs’ Locket Widget to let unrecorded photograph sharing betwixt friends and household done a location surface widget; Vitalii Mogylevets’s hydration tracking app Waterllama; and ARTE Experience’s Inua – A Story successful Ice and Time to research humanities events from Inuit tradition.

App Store has had a challenging 2022 with an interaction connected gross and regulatory battles. It had to let developers to usage third-party systems for in-app purchases successful regions including South Korea and the Netherlands (just for dating apps). The U.S. and the EU are besides looking astatine ways to power app organisation monopolies crossed antithetic app stores. These regulations could unit Apple to loosen immoderate rules astir however it allows app organisation and payments connected the App Store.

In March, Apple allowed “reader apps” — apps that springiness users entree to integer contented similar music, books, and videos — to see outer links for users to make and negociate their accounts. In June, the institution relaxed immoderate of its rules astir binary contented successful the app, utilizing HTML5, and lottery and donation-related apps. In October, it cracked down on NFT functionality wrong apps, restricting developers from utilizing integer collectibles to unlock caller features. Plus, it besides mandated that immoderate NFTs acquisition strategy indispensable you Apple’s in-app acquisition mechanism, and springiness a committee to the company. It besides updated its guidelines to specify that it volition instrumentality a chopped for buying societal media station boosts wrong the app.

According to manufacture data, the App Store gross took a 5% dip successful nett revenue due to the fact that of the planetary economical downturn. What’s more, fluctuating currency prices against the dollar forced Apple to rise prices connected App Store across aggregate countries successful Asia and Europe. On apical of each this, Twitter’s caller proprietor Elon Musk has besides picked a fight with the tech elephantine by claiming that the iPhone Maker “threatened to withhold Twitter from App Store.”

Apple besides released the apical downloaded apps and games crossed escaped and paid categories for the year. Here are the apical apps successful the US: