A few days before the Worldwide Developer Conference 2025 (WWDC), Apple was named a 2025 Design Award winner and finalist.
This year’s winners and finalists mainly include indie apps and startups, and generative AI apps are significantly missing from the list, despite all other trends. This is the second year Apple skipped AI-centric apps for awards.
The company highlighted several apps with AI capabilities, but included Speedify (acquired in the inclusiveness category) and Mois, a music creation and editing app (both are venture-backed startups).
Naturally, Apple is focusing more on how developers used its tools to build a better experience.
The company has nominated 12 winners (one app and one game each) across six categories. In this year’s list of finalists, Apple highlighted a number of apps and games from small developers around the world.
Watch Duty, who helped them share information during California Wildfirs, won an award in the Social Impact category. Meanwhile, M13 Support Developer Prototyping Tool Play was awarded the best app in the innovation category.
Here is the complete list of winners:
Joy and fun
Inclusiveness
innovation
Exchange
Social impact
Visuals and graphics