Apple App Store games and apps of the year winners announced
The company wot made your phone says you should get these downloaded
Apple announced its app and game of the year nominations in November, and now it has finally revealed the App Store winners.
Here’s a quick rundown of all 17 2024 App Store Award Winners, to give you some tips as to what you might want to download to your iPhone, iPad or Mac next.
iPhone App of the Year
Kino, from Lux Optics Inc
What is it? A camera app with a load of colour grading and image enhancement filters to make your shabby content look proper glitzy, like.
iPhone Game of the Year
AFK Journey, from Farlight Games
What is it? A free-to-play roleplaying title designed to keep you playing every day for as long as possible, hopefully while lightening your real-life coffers along the way.
iPad App of the Year
Moises, from Moises Systems
What is it? An app that can separate out vocal lines and instruments in music tracks, and identify chords to help you learn songs. Neat concept.
iPad Game of the Year
Squad Busters, from Supercell
What is it? A fun free-to-play multiplayer action-strategy game... again designed to keep you playing every day for as long as possible, hopefully while lightening your real-life coffers along the way.
Mac App of the Year
Adobe Lightroom, from Adobe
What is it? An industry standard photo and image editing app that has been around for the better part of 20 years and costs around £10 a month to use. Now complete with added AI features.
Mac Game of the Year
Thank Goodness You’re Here!, from Panic, Inc
What is it? A funny adventure-puzzle game fans of Untitled Google Game might enjoy. Made by Coal Supper, a developer from Yorkshire, which feeds into the game’s very British sense of humour.
Apple Arcade Game of the Year
Balatro+, from Playstack
What is it? It’s one of the biggest gaming sensations of the year, a hyper-moreish card game in which you play poker hands and use game-breaking Joker cards to rack-up high scores.
Apple Vision Pro App of the Year
What If…? An Immersive Story, from Disney
What is it? A version of the alternative past/future series from Marvel that plays out as a series of animated dioramas. A must-try for headset owners.
Apple Vision Pro Game of the Year
THRASHER: Arcade Odyssey, from Puddle
What is it? A VR game in which you make hand gestures to control a “space eel” and take out space nasties in a series of mind-bending psychedelic levels.
Apple Watch App of the Year
Lumy, from Raja V.
What is it? An app that helps you track the sunlight through the day, to help you plan photography shoots, hikes and so on.
Apple TV App of the Year
F1 TV, from Formula One Digital Media Limited.
What is it? It grants you access to F1 coverage, as long as you have an active F1 subscription, with neat features that let you listen in on team radios and circuit standings.
Apple also named six “cultural impact” recommendations that people should give a try, too. It's a real miscellany, picks Apple staff wanted to highlight without being able to award an app or game of the year nomination:
- DailyArt
- Do You Really Want to Know? 2
- EF Hello
- Oko
- NYT Games
- The Wreck