Apple recognizes the most beautiful apps on iOS every year, in what has quickly become one of the most prestigious awards for app designers.
The Apple Design Awards are announced and distributed during the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), Apple’s annual week-long conference where company executives meet with developers and show them what’s coming down the pipe in terms of software. This year, Apple used the ceremony to wrap up the first day of the conference, and 10 winners from around the world walked away with an award in hand.
The chosen apps aren’t necessarily popular yet, because they’re new enough to do the most with Apple’s most recent software updates. They vary in type – some are productivity apps, and many of them are games – but they all show “creative artistry and technical achievements of developers who reflect the best in design, innovation and technology on Apple platforms,” according to Apple.
Here, in no particular order, are the most beautiful apps on iOS, according to Apple:
Agenda, the date-focused note-taking app (Amsterdam, Netherlands)
Price: Free
BANDIMAL, a music composer for kids (Helsinki, Finland).
Price: $3.99
Calzy, a modern calculator with additional features like calculation history (Chennai, India).
Price: $1.99
iTranslate Converse, a noisy environment-proof translation service for 38 languages (Graz, Austria).
Price: Free, with in-app purchasing for Pro version.
Triton Sponge, a healthcare tool for operating rooms (Los Altos, USA).
Price: Free
Florence, an interactive storybook about a girl's first love (Melbourne, Australia).
Price: $2.99
Playdead’s INSIDE, a beautiful game with some realistic-looking, graphic deaths (Copenhagen, Denmark).
Price: Free to play the beginning, and an in-app purchase to play the whole game.
Alto’s Odyssey, a scenic game three years in the making (Toronto, Canada).
Price : $4.99
Frost, a game with swirling colors that you direct home (Vienna, Austria).
Price: $4.99
Oddmar, an immersive viking game with beautiful puzzles and colorful challenges (Eskişehir, Turkey).
Price: $4.99