WWDC25
Meet the 2025 Apple Design Award Winners
Each year, the Apple Design Awards celebrate the creative artistry and technical achievement of developers in the areas of design, innovation, technology, and more.
We’re thrilled to announce the winners for 2025.
(Some apps are not available in all countries or regions, or on all devices.)
Delight and Fun
Winners and finalists in this category provide memorable, engaging, and satisfying experiences enhanced by Apple technologies.
Apps winner: CapWords
The AI-powered language-learning app CapWords is an incredibly fun way to create audio flash cards: Simply photograph everyday objects around you, like a coffee mug, pencil, or cupcake. You’ll see the word in whichever language you select, and you can tap to hear the pronunciation. The app offers Spanish, French, Japanese, and more.
Meet the finalists:
Ideal for photographers and nature enthusiasts alike, Lumy beautifully visualizes the movements of the sun and moon so you can make the most of golden hour, sunrise, moonset, or last light.
Denim helps you create the perfect cover art for your digital playlists. Use a stock image, a personal photo, a string of emoji, or one of over 100 illustrations in the app’s library, then tweak the type to match your playlist’s vibe.
Games winner: Balatro
The audacious indie Balatro boldly reimagines poker as a high-score chaser. Build poker-like hands that defy tradition, like a five-of-a-kind or a Flush House (a full house where every card is the same suit). Or use power-ups that turn simple hands into score-smashing plays.
Meet the finalists:
The profoundly bonkers adventure Thank Goodness You’re Here! flings itself from one hilarious vignette to the next, churning out absurdity after absurdity to create a surprisingly endearing world.
With a brilliantly conceived, labyrinthine world filled with secrets and surprises, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown delivers a stylish, time-bending adventure with deep roots in mythology.
Inclusivity
Winners and finalists in this category provide a great experience for all by reflecting a variety of backgrounds, abilities, and languages.
Apps winner: Speechify
Speechify reads text from a range of web pages, PDFs, ebooks, and more, all in the voice of your choice. Choose from hundreds of voices (including celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow and Snoop Dogg) in over 50 languages. With support for key accessibility features like Dynamic Type and VoiceOver, Speechify can be an essential tool for people with low vision, who are neurodivergent, or who have auditory learning styles.
Meet the finalists:
Mental wellness app Evolve offers a library of guided audio sessions, breathing exercises, and journaling prompts tailored to the LGBTQ+ community—all created in collaboration with a global network of therapists.
Train Fitness’ advanced algorithm automatically tracks over 100 strength-training exercises, from kettlebell squats to knee push-ups, using only the accelerometer in Apple Watch. Because no action is required to initiate a workout, the app is particularly useful for anyone who faces challenges interacting with screens.
Games winner: Art of Fauna
Art of Fauna’s gorgeous wildlife puzzles, drawn from elegant 18th- and 19th-century scientific illustrations, were designed from the ground up with accessibility in mind. Play entirely with VoiceOver, customize themes to accommodate color blindness, or tweak the phobia setting to eliminate images you might find unsettling.
Meet the finalists:
The adorable sticker-based puzzler puffies. offers a range of accessibility features, including high-contrast mode, Reduce Motion, and “outline” options that make it easier to see where each piece fits on the board.
A gently paced fantasy adventure with text-based quests, Land of Livia is an accessibility-first experience designed for players who are blind or who have low vision. Support for VoiceOver, Dynamic Type, and haptic feedback ensure everyone can battle oversize rodents and wield magical swords.
Innovation
Winners and finalists in this category provide a state-of-the-art experience through novel use of Apple technologies that set them apart in their genre.
Apps winner: Play
Simple but sophisticated, Play helps developers of any level design interactive prototypes, tap into Apple technologies and popular APIs, and ship straight to the App Store with Xcode.
Meet the finalists:
The musical marvel Moises isolates vocals, guitar, bass, drums, and other instruments in any recording to help musicians perfect their performances. It can also provide a song’s chords on the fly, transcribe lyrics, and identify the verses and choruses so you can loop specific sections (and supercharge your practice sessions).
Capybara transcribes your meetings in real-time, provides a near-instantaneous text translation into over a dozen languages, and summarizes the key points—all in one seamless (and adorably illustrated) workflow.
Games winner: PBJ – The Musical
A snack-inspired reimagining of Romeo and Juliet, PBJ – The Musical tells the saga of star-crossed condiments through hand-animated paper cutouts, playful controls, inventive camera work, and clever touches that spread loads of joy.
Meet the finalists:
The virtual pet game Pawz on Apple Vision Pro leverages passthrough technology to let you meditate, relax, and play with virtual pets right in your own environment.
With Spatial Audio, hand and eye tracking, and immersive 3D spaces, Gears & Goo on Apple Vision Pro reinvents tower defense with a twist that’s as silly as it is strategic.
Interaction
Winners and finalists in this category deliver intuitive interfaces and effortless controls that are perfectly tailored to their platform.
Apps winner: Taobao
Products from China’s leading e‑commerce platform truly come to life in the Taobao app. View realistic 3D models, see how they look in your room, and use the powerful side-by-side comparison tool to get everything you need without setting foot in a store.
Meet the finalists:
The distraction-free writing app iA Writer helps you concentrate on crafting your words—and nothing more. Use Focus mode to dim everything except the sentence you’re working on. Syntax Highlight displays different parts of speech in their own color so you can spot superfluous adverbs and weak verbs.
The elegant recipe organizer Mela helpfully highlights each step, measurement, and timer in a recipe right when you need it. The app’s timers display in the Dynamic Island, ingredients you need sync with Reminders, and the incredibly accurate recipe scanner captures all the details.
Games winner: Dredge
A slow-burn horror adventure set in a maritime town teeming with secrets, Dredge is all about its eerie underwater monsters. Play is satisfyingly smooth whether you’re using touch controls or a connected controller, and your progress syncs seamlessly across iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
Meet the finalists:
Tossing blobs of gunk in the polished (and sticky) Apple Vision Pro game Gears & Goo is a snap thanks to impressive eye tracking and hand control.
Learning to pull off kickflips and grinds is a breeze in Skate City: New York—but mastering its many challenges will keep even seasoned digital skaters glued to their virtual boards.
Social Impact
Winners and finalists in this category improve lives in a meaningful way and shine a light on crucial issues.
Apps winner: Watch Duty
When wildfires swept through Southern California in January, the volunteer-run app Watch Duty provided timely and often lifesaving guidance, resources, and critical alerts in and around evacuation zones.
Meet the finalists:
Ground News aggregates articles from over 50,000 global publications, delivering headlines with an easy-to-read graphic indicating the political bent of an article.
Opal helps you reduce your device usage by going beyond your standard Screen Time settings. For popular services, it can block both the app and the website (so you can’t sneak more time in a browser), while the Deep Focus option makes it more difficult to bypass any time limits you’ve set.
Games winner: Neva
A powerful, richly illustrated story about the emotional effects of ecological decline, Neva follows a girl and her wolf through a decaying world, using the changing seasons to illustrate environmental challenges as well as the evolution of their relationship.
Meet the finalists:
Ahoy! From Picardy is a whimsical story with a powerful environmental message. Follow the adventures of an explorer desperate to make up for past mistakes—and bring a little beauty into his part of the world.
There are two ways to solve Art of Fauna’s wildlife puzzles: Rearrange the pieces, or reorder the text description on the back. It is a relaxing way to raise awareness for endangered species and a love letter to the natural world.
Visuals and Graphics
Winners and finalists in this category feature stunning imagery, skillfully drawn interfaces, and high-quality animations with a distinctive and cohesive theme.
Apps winner: Feather
The impressive modeling tool Feather lets artists and designers transform two-dimensional drawings into three-dimensional creations that can be rotated, reshaped, and animated, all with the stroke of Apple Pencil Pro or a finger.
Meet the finalists:
With clean visuals, modern typography, and subtle haptics, Vocabulary is an elegant way to learn new words.
An unforgettable lesson in biology, CellWalk lets you look through a portal-like view to see DNA strands intertwine, the many powers of RNA, and just how much is packed into a cell’s cytoplasm.
Games winner: Infinity Nikki
Infinity Nikki is a glowing showcase of mobile graphics. This open-world wonderland swaps weapons for wardrobe and comes to life with richly textured fabrics, stunning lighting, and advanced shading effects.
Meet the finalists:
With its remarkable use of hardware-accelerated ray tracing and particle effects, Control is a visual feast. In this paranormal thriller, even ominously austere government offices are teeming with dread.
Each level in the gorgeous platformer Neva is rendered in its own soft-hued color palette, with the camera zooming deftly in and out to capture sweeping horizons and sumptuously animated combat.