Apple Announces 2022 App Store Awards Winners • TechCrunch

Today, Apple announced its list of App Store award winners for this year along with the top list for most downloaded apps and games across free and paid categories. These prices include apps for all of the company’s platforms, including iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Mac and Apple TV. For 2022, social networking app BeReal won the iPhone app of the year award, while note-taking app GoodNotes 5 won the crown for best iPad app.

Synium Software GmbH’s MacFamilyTree 10 – a visual app for family tree exploration – was noted as the best Mac of the year; TelevisaUnivision Interactive’s Vix streaming service was awarded the best Apple TV app for elevating Spanish-language stories; and Gentler Stories’ Gentler Streak, a fitness and fitness tracker, was awarded Best Apple Watch App of the Year.

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Electronic Arts’ Apex Legends Mobile won the best iPhone game award while XD Network Inc.’s Moncage earned the best iPad game title. Other game winners include 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 China App of the Year.

BeReal was a sleeper hit on social media this year, forcing giants like TikTok and Instagram to emulate the format. The France-based company originally launched the app in 2020. But the format of getting a notification at random times of the day to post a photo that combines the front and rear cameras within two minutes became popular this year. It is a stark departure that a social app won the best krone app this year compared to the last two top apps “Toca Life World” (a children’s app) and “WakeOut!” (a fitness app). In its awards blog post, Apple described BeReal as an app to provide “an authentic glimpse into the lives of family and friends.”

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“This year’s App Store Award winners reimagined our experiences with apps that offered fresh, thoughtful and genuine perspectives,” CEO Tim Cook said in a statement, “From self-taught solo creators to international teams around the world, these founders are making a meaningful impact, and represents the ways apps and games impact society and our lives.”

Last year, Apple had a bonus section called “Apps that brought us together.” So this year, it has introduced a “Cultural Impact” section to honor some apps that had a “lasting impact on people’s lives and influenced culture.” The list includes the How We Feel Project’s How We Feel app for logging daily emotion-based check-ins; Rise-Home Stories Project’s Home Stories Project to highlight stories of systemic housing injustices and their impact on people of color; Locket Labs’ Locket Widget to allow live photo sharing between friends and family through a home screen widget; Vitalii Mogylevets’ hydration app Waterllama; and ARTE Experience’s Inua – A Story in Ice and Time to explore historical events from the Inuit tradition.

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The App Store has had a challenging 2022 with an impact on revenue and regulatory battles. It had to allow developers to use third-party systems for in-app purchases in regions including South Korea and the Netherlands (for dating apps only). The US and EU are also looking at ways to control app distribution monopolies across different app stores. These regulations could force Apple to loosen some rules around how they allow app distribution and payments on the App Store.

In March, Apple allowed “reading apps” — apps that give users access to digital content such as music, books and videos — to include external links so users can create and manage their accounts. In June, the company relaxed some of its rules around in-app binary content, using HTML5 and lottery- and donation-related apps. In October, it cracked down on NFT functionality in apps, restricting developers from using digital collectibles to unlock new features. In addition, it also mandated that any NFT’s purchase system must include Apple’s in-app purchase mechanism and provide a commission to the company. It also updated its policies to specify that it will take a cut for purchasing social media post boosts in the app.

Apple also released the most downloaded apps and games across free and paid categories for the year. Here are the top apps in the US: