2022 App Store Awards Winners Announced & I Don’t Recognise Most Of Them

Awards like these are useful when separating the grain from the chaff in an overcrowded App Store.

Once again the App Store Awards is upon us, where, as Randy Savage would say, the cream rises to the top.

The fact that most of these apps and games are unrecognisable shows how colossal the App Store library is and how good apps can slip through the cracks.

From self-taught solo creators to international teams spanning the globe, these entrepreneurs are making a meaningful impact, and represent the ways in which apps and games influence our communities and lives.

Apple CEO Tim Cook.

The Winner’s List

iPhone App of the Year: BeReal, from BeReal is a social network app that revolves around creating 2-minute updates or content but with no monetisation option. In other words, it promises an authentic sharing experience, but don’t expect to be famous. Both are oxymorons in the world of social marketing media.

iPad App of the Year: GoodNotes 5, from Time Base Technology Limited, looks like a… good notes app. It has the basic bells and whistles expected in a note app and a comprehensive set of extra features that can be got with the RM42.90 full version. And of course, it supports the Apple Pencil. Try Freeform if you want a free first-party analogue.

Mac App of the Year: MacFamilyTree 10, from Synium Software GmbH does not map out the Apple Macintosh linkage but is a tool to create an interactive family tree of your own. This dream genealogical tool will cost you RM164.90. It won’t do the work for you, but it’ll make the job easier.

Apple Watch App of the Year: Gentler Streak, from Gentler Stories LLC, is different from Apple’s Fitness app by focusing on balance. It encourages users to work out, rest, and know their limits, unlike most fitness apps that just have a goal on an upward trajectory. However, it is a subscription that starts at RM37.90 per person per month up to RM679.90 for a lifetime family account.

iPhone Game of the Year: Apex Legends Mobile, from Electronic Arts because they can’t give it to Epic, but seriously? I’d love to know what’s the criteria that let Apple give the award to this money-munching battle royal game. That 30% perhaps?

iPad Game of the Year: Moncage, from X.D. Network Inc is an RM18.90 perspective puzzle game similar to Monument Valley, Superliminal, or Gorogoa, but confined to a cube. The game is also available on Steam.

Mac Game of the Year: Inscryption, from Devolver gets no objection from me. It is an excellent game, not the best in the grander pool of games — which would include other systems — in my opinion, but for a Mac game, yeah. RM94.90.

Apple TV Game of the Year: El Hijo, from HandyGames is the only game on the list that I have never heard of. Described as a spaghetti-western stealth game where you play as a boy who is looking for his mother, it is intriguing. I’d try it for RM44.90. Also, I hope apple will push for more Apple TV-centric games.

Cultural Impactors!

As Cook hinted, Apple is also celebrating apps that are making a difference in lives and culture. Here are the five Cultural Impact winners as selected by Apple’s App Store Editors:

How We Feel from the How We Feel Project, Inc lets users be in touch with their emotional well-being with daily check-ins, helping them express what they are feeling in words and presenting strategies to address these emotions at the moment.

Dot’s Home from the Rise-Home Stories Project is a casual point-and-click adventure game that spotlights Arica’s systemic housing injustices and the subsequent impact within communities of colour.

Locket Widget from Locket Labs, Inc. is an interesting one, it allows those you know to send photos directly to each other’s Home Screen. Probably something other social networks can steal as well.

Waterllama from Vitalii Mogylevets is an app you need if your body’s thirst meter is malfunctioning. It’s a reminder to drink that is done in the most designer way possible.

Inua – A Story in Ice and Time from ARTE Experience is an engaging, mystical adventure that explores historical events through elements of Inuit traditions, folklore, and tales. Think God Of War without the violence and is more factual.

You can find the Apple Newsroom about it here.