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Apple Announces 45 App Store Awards Finalists for 2024

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

Today, Apple announced the finalists for its App Store Awards, a selection of apps picked by the App Store Editorial team each fall to recognize “exceptional user experience, design, and innovation from developers across the world.”

This year’s awards are a little different than in the past. 2023 was the first time finalists were announced, so that part isn’t new. But this year, Apple has expanded the number of categories from 10 to 12 and increased the finalist count from about 40 to 45 to include apps and games for Vision Pro. It’s also notable that the finalists were introduced in a press release last year by Phil Schiller, while this year’s awards are being introduced by Carson Oliver, Apple’s head of Worldwide App Store, who had this to say about the finalists:

We’re thrilled to celebrate this year’s App Store Award finalists, whose imagination and craftsmanship have produced amazing apps that users love. From games that transport players to fantastical new worlds, to apps that fuel creativity, these developers are delivering remarkable experiences that captivate and inspire.

Let’s take a look at the categories and finalists as they’re described in Apple’s press release.

iPhone App of the Year Finalists

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

Finalists in the iPhone App of the Year category empowered users to enhance real-life experiences through personalized tools and easy-to-use features:

Kino, for turning everyday moments into cinematic masterpieces. 

Runna, for offering tailored training plans to runners of all experience levels. 

Tripsy, for keeping travelers organized and stress-free.

iPhone Game of the Year Finalists

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

Finalists in the iPhone Game of the Year category brought players captivating narratives with rich visuals and compelling characters:

AFK Journey, for building enchanting fantasy worlds with striking battles. 

The WereCleaner, for delivering comical and creative gameplay. 

Zenless Zone Zero, for immersing players in action-packed storylines.

iPad App of the Year Finalists

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

Finalists in the iPad App of the Year category inspired imaginative play and creativity:

Bluey: Let’s Play, for delivering lovable characters and family-friendly fun.

Moises, for elevating music practice with AI-powered tools.

Procreate Dreams, for bringing animated stories to life.

iPad Game of the Year Finalists

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

Finalists in the iPad Game of the Year category featured dynamic storytelling and beautifully crafted worlds:

Assassin’s Creed Mirage, for transporting players into a world of narrative-driven adventure. 

Disney Speedstorm, for bringing exciting, high-speed racing experiences. 

Squad Busters, for combining the thrill of competition with welcoming, playful gameplay.

Apple Arcade Game of the Year

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

Finalists in the Apple Arcade Game of the Year category offered epic stories and a refresh of the classics:

Balatro+, for inventing a thrilling card game that’s like no other.

Outlanders 2, for captivating players with revamped graphics and imaginative levels.

Sonic Dream Team, for introducing new adventures to the characters players know and love.

Mac App of the Year Finalists

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

Finalists in the Mac App of the Year category delivered powerful tools, helping users tackle projects with ease:

Adobe Lightroom, for enhancing the photo editing process with AI-powered features. 

OmniFocus 4, for fostering focus with simplified task management.

Shapr3D, for transforming the 3D design workflow.

Mac Game of the Year Finalists

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

Finalists in the Mac Game of the Year category brought gamers unique protagonists, visual style, and endless fun:

Frostpunk 2, for expanding on the city-building genre.

Stray, for capturing both mystery and playfulness in its dark world. 

Thank Goodness You’re Here!, for amusing players with nonstop humor and absurdity.

Apple Watch App of the Year Finalists

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

Finalists in the Apple Watch App of the Year category provided convenient access to helpful tools and information, right on their wrist:

LookUp, for improving vocabularies with daily definitions.

Lumy, for connecting users to the rhythms of the sun and moon.

Watch to 5K, for giving runners a boost, all the way to the finish line.

Apple Vision Pro App of the Year Finalists

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

Finalists in the Apple Vision Pro App of the Year category pushed the boundaries of spatial computing:

JigSpace, for empowering users to view 3D and augmented reality models with ease. 

NBA, for redefining the future of how users watch the sports they love.

What If…? An Immersive Story, for inviting players into a new kind of Marvel experience.

Apple Vision Pro Game of the Year Finalists

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

Finalists in the Apple Vision Pro Game of the Year category stunned players with vibrant scenes and intuitive gameplay:

Loóna, for crafting relaxing puzzles to unwind with.

THRASHER, for introducing smooth, trailblazing controls and a mesmerizing alien world.

Vacation Simulator, for taking players to destinations filled with funny characters and even funnier activities.

Apple TV App of the Year Finalists

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

Finalists in the Apple TV App of the Year category brought stunning experiences to the biggest screen in the home:

DROPOUT, for providing endless laughter and fun.

F1 TV, for transporting fans straight into the cockpit of a race car. 

Zoom, for keeping groups connected in innovative ways.

Cultural Impact Finalists

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

Finalists in the Cultural Impact category brought users powerful stories and helped them bring out their best selves to create a lasting impact:

Arco, for letting players shape their own story. 

The Bear, for turning bedtime into a calming, interactive experience. 

BetterSleep, for helping users sleep — and feel — better. 

Brawl Stars, for delivering quick bites of action-packed gameplay. 

DailyArt, for inspiring curiosity about artistic masterpieces. 

Do You Really Want to Know 2, for addressing misconceptions about HIV through an endearing interactive story.

EF Hello, for empowering language learners with AI-enhanced tools.

NYT Games, for uniting puzzle lovers across generations with a daily dose of fun.

Oko, for making street-crossing safer and more accessible to all.

Partiful, for simplifying social gatherings to foster connection and community.

Pinterest, for inspiring new ideas and endless possibilities. 

The Wreck, for telling an intimate and impactful story via cinematic gameplay.

As always, it’s great to see MacStories favorites like Kino, Tripsy, Procreate Dreams, Balatro, OmniFocus, LookUp, Arco, and others among the finalists. Apple says the winners will be revealed in the coming weeks.

Denim Adds Direct Spotify Integration to Customize Playlist Artwork

Denim's Spotify integration.

Denim’s Spotify integration.

I don’t remember exactly when I started using Denim, but it was years ago, and I was looking for a way to spruce up the covers of my playlists. I was using Apple Music at the time, and it was before Apple added basic playlist cover generation features to the Music app. Even after that feature came to Music, Denim still provided more options in terms of colors, fonts, and patterns. Earlier this year, I covered its 3.0 update with the ability to automatically recognize artists featured in playlists for Club members here.

I switched to Spotify months ago (and haven’t looked back since; music discovery is still leagues ahead of Apple Music), and I was very happy to see recently that Denim can now integrate with Spotify directly, without the need to save covers to the Photos app first. Essentially, once you’ve logged in with your Spotify account, the app is connected to your library with access to your playlists. You can pick an existing playlist directly from Denim, customize its cover, and save it back to your Spotify account without opening the Spotify app or having to save an image file upfront.

That’s possible thanks to Spotify’s web-based API for third-party apps, which allows a utility like Denim to simplify the creation flow of custom covers down to a couple of taps. In a nice touch, once a playlist cover has been saved to Spotify, the app lets you know with haptic feedback and allows you to immediately view the updated cover in Spotify, should you want to double-check the results in the context of the app.

The combination of this fast customization process for Spotify and new artwork options added in this release only cements Denim’s role as the best utility for people who care about the looks of the playlists they share with friends and family. Denim is available on the App Store for free, with both a lifetime purchase ($19.99) and annual subscription ($4.99) available to unlock its full feature set.

Tapbots Releases Ivory 2.0 with Hashtag Lists and a Redesigned Share Sheet Extension

Today, Tapbots released version 2.0 of Ivory, the company’s Mastodon client for iOS, iPadOS, and macOS. The update brings a notable list of improvements, one exciting new feature that should make it easier to follow and curate specific topics on the fediverse, and a fully redesigned share sheet extension.

On Mastodon, it is possible to follow hashtags in addition to accounts. This feature is particularly useful for tracking discussions about a specific topic across the wider fediverse. However, following hashtags is currently limited. Followed hashtags appear in your main chronological timeline among your followed accounts, and it isn’t possible to curate together multiple hashtags into a separate, easily accessible view. Ivory 2.0 aims to solve this with Hashtag Lists. Now, in the app’s redesigned Hashtags tab, you can create a list that contains up to four hashtags, and you can even exclude specific hashtags if you’re looking to fine-tune the resulting timeline.

Creating a hashtag list for cat pics in Ivory 2.0.

Creating a hashtag list for cat pics in Ivory 2.0.

Hashtag lists can be accessed from Ivory's dedicated Hashtags tab, or directly from the Home tab by tapping on the title bar.

Hashtag lists can be accessed from Ivory’s dedicated Hashtags tab, or directly from the Home tab by tapping on the title bar.

The other big improvement in Ivory 2.0 is its redesigned share sheet extension for creating posts. It is now fully-featured, with the ability to set the post’s visibility and language, as well as an option to add alternative text descriptions to shared images and videos. When sharing a URL, the share sheet will now show a preview of the link card that will appear as part of your post. To get started, tap the Share button from the Photos app, Safari, or any app that supports the native iOS and iPadOS share sheet, then choose the Ivory icon.

Sharing a link, a cat pic, and multiple images via Ivory's redesigned share sheet extension.

Sharing a link, a cat pic, and multiple images via Ivory’s redesigned share sheet extension.

Ivory's new share sheet extension is also available on the Mac.

Ivory’s new share sheet extension is also available on the Mac.

In addition, Ivory 2.0 comes with small visual refinements to the way images and videos are displayed in a post’s detail view and the ability to set a fixed order for context menu items throughout the app.

Tapbots continues to update and refine Ivory at a steady pace. As a result, it is still my favorite way to use Mastodon on a daily basis. With a new major version of Mastodon on the horizon, I’m excited to see Tapbots add support for new features in Ivory without necessarily waiting for improvements to the default Mastodon experience.

If you want to create your own cat hashtag list today, Ivory 2.0 is now available on the App Store for iOS, iPadOS, and macOS. The app comes with a seven-day free trial for new users, after which a monthly or annual subscription is required to use most of its features.

2024 ADA Finalists Announced

As WWDC approaches, Apple has announced the finalists in the running for its annual Apple Design Awards. The awards ceremony revealing the winners will be held during WWDC.

This year, there are seven categories, and each category has six finalists. That’s one more than last year, with Spatial Computing joining the categories for the first time. The 2024 ADA finalists are:

Delight and Fun

Inclusivity

Innovation

Interaction

Social Impact

Visuals and Graphics

Spatial Computing

The selections include a broad range of games and apps, including some apps from smaller developers like Devin Davies, the maker of the wonderful recipe app Crouton, the team behind Gentler Streaks, one of my favorite fitness apps, and SmartGym by Mateus Abras, as well as titles from bigger publishers.

I’m glad that Apple announces the finalists in advance. Winning an ADA is a big achievement for any developer, but it’s also nice to know who the finalists are because it’s quite an honor among the many apps that could have been chosen too. Plus as a fan of apps, Apple’s list of finalists always reminds me of an app or two that I haven’t tried yet.

Listen Later: Listen to the Articles as Podcasts [Sponsor]

Listen Later gets you through that huge pile of web articles you’ve been saving for later. Let’s face it, the web is a big place, and there’s always more to read than you have time for. Read-later apps give you a place to save articles for later, but you still need to find the time to read everything you saved.

Listen Later helps you get through that stack of articles by combining the power of podcasts and AI. Simply send Listen Later a link to an article and its AI converts the text into a narration using one of its natural-sounding AI voices. Each article becomes an episode of your very own personal Listen Later podcast. Listen Later works with text from images, PDFs, and other text documents and can translate articles to other languages, too.

It’s easy to add your Listen Later podcast to your favorite podcast player, making it available whether you’re driving to work, out for a long walk, or simply hanging out. Best of all, though, by converting your articles to audio, Listen Later greatly expands the time you can spend on your read-later queue.

What’s more, with Listen Later, you never spend more than you need. You buy credits, which are used as you add articles to your podcast feed. When you’ve used up your credits, you can reload them automatically or purchase more manually. How much you spend is completely up to you.

Visit Listen Later today to learn more, sign up for free, and receive $2 in free credits to convert articles to audio.

Our thanks to Listen Later for sponsoring MacStories this week.

AppStories, Episode 376 – Shortcuts Wishlist (2024 Edition)→

This week on AppStories, we take a hard look at Shortcuts to discuss what needs fixing and the new features we hope to see Apple announce at WWDC this year.

Sponsored by:

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Shortcuts Wishlist

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On AppStories+, we explain the recent changes we’ve made at MacStories and how we’re approaching its future.

We deliver AppStories+ to subscribers with bonus content, ad-free, and at a high bitrate early every week.

To learn more about the benefits included with an AppStories+ subscription, visit our Plans page, or read the AppStories+ FAQ.

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Apple Music Debuts Heavy Rotation, A New Daily Made For You Playlist

This morning I woke up to a pleasant surprise. Apple had quietly added a new Made For You playlist to the Music app called Heavy Rotation that’s updated daily.

As you’d expect from a playlist called Heavy Rotation, mine is comprised of 25 songs, most of which I believe I listened to yesterday and probably other times recently. What’s a little different about Heavy Rotation compared to the other Made For You Playlists is that it’s updated daily, while the other Made For You playlists get updated weekly.

Made For You and Stations for You are excellent complements to Apple's curated playlists.

Made For You and Stations for You are excellent complements to Apple’s curated playlists.

If you listen to a lot of albums, you’ll probably have a bunch of songs by a handful of artists in your Heavy Rotation playlist. That is certainly true of The National’s Trouble Will Find Me, an album I listened to yesterday. However, most of the time, I listen to playlists, which will undoubtedly add more variety.

Curiously, the new playlist doesn’t seem to respect the Focus filter that allows you to exclude listening from your Apple Music Listening History. Both Federico and Jonathan use that feature and told me they each found a track in their Heavy Rotation playlist that should have been filtered out.

Heavy Rotation is an excellent addition to Music. Playing it as I write this, it feels like I’m picking up where I left off yesterday as I walked around my neighborhood with my AirPods Pro. I hope that today’s addition of a new Made For You playlist and the recent addition of the Discovery station are signs that Apple plans to explore even more ways to resurface songs in your Music library.

Vision Pro App Spotlight: Longplay Adds Immersive Album Listening

The music experience on the Apple Vision Pro is excellent. It starts with the device’s built-in headphones and spatial audio, which work hand-in-hand with the visual components of spatial computing. Apple has already shown off the potential for immersive experiences like Alicia Keys: Rehearsal Room, but the music experience goes deeper than that, thanks to third-party developers.

I’ve already covered Juno, Christian Selig’s YouTube player app, which is great for watching music videos and other content, and NowPlaying, which supplements Apple Music with editorial content, lyrics, and more. Today, though, I want to focus on Longplay, Adrian Schönig’s album-oriented playback app for Apple Music.

Longplay 2.0 was released last August. It was a big update that I reviewed at the time and have been enjoying ever since. The app is available on the Vision Pro now too, complete with an immersive mode that I love.

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