The nominees for Apple's 2026 Design of the Year awards

On the 15th of this month, ahead of the annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2026 scheduled to begin on June 8th, Apple announced the nominees for its Design Awards. These awards recognize the best apps and games that combine innovation, creativity, and technical excellence within the Apple ecosystem. This year, 36 nominees are competing across six categories, with the winners to be revealed during the WWDC 2026 ceremony. The categories are: Fun & Entertainment, Inclusivity, Innovation, Interactivity, Social Impact, and Aesthetics & Graphics. Here are the details of each category and the apps nominated.

---

Fun and Entertainment Category

This category honors apps and games that give users unforgettable, enjoyable and satisfying experiences, and creatively utilize Apple technologies.

📱Apps

Blippo+ 

A Mac-only TV app that streams multiple channels of programs reminiscent of classic television. What sets it apart is that the stream is simultaneous for all users, so everyone sees the same content at the same time. Panic paid meticulous attention to every design detail, from the fonts and buttons to the large pixels, to revive the aesthetics of the early digital era.

---

Metaballs

Experience a mesmerizing spatial phenomenon with Vision Pro glasses, allowing you to create bubbles and gelatinous droplets in 3D space. Push, drag, and distort these shapes, and they react realistically to the ambient lighting. Your creations can also be exported in USDZ format for use in other projects.

---

Grumpy

A simple and ingenious daily app that delivers wisdom and proverbs from a fictional caveman, in funny sentences. It features a completely hand-drawn design, a custom status bar, and a charmingly childlike interface. No cloud storage, no login, just simple daily wisdom.

---

🎮 Games

Power Wash Simulator

The ultimate relaxation game puts you in the task of cleaning all kinds of dirt with a pressure hose, featuring precise tactile feedback that varies depending on the hose nozzle. But the story takes an exciting turn, involving time travel, mysterious cat gatherings, and ancient temples.

---

Is This Seat Taken?

A clever, cartoon-style puzzle game where you assign people their favorite seats on buses and in restaurants based on their quirky personalities. It features playful details, surprising reactions when you touch elements, and hidden eggs on the screen—all without any time pressure.

---

Ball x Pit

A fast-paced RPG with a simple premise—launching super-powered balls at hordes of enemies—that transforms into a delightful and satisfying classic arcade experience. Its retro visuals and chaotic collision action shine brightly on HDR-enabled iPhone and iPad screens.

---

Inclusion category فئة

This category celebrates apps that provide an exceptional experience for everyone, reflecting a diversity of backgrounds, abilities, and languages.

📱Apps

Hearing Buddy

Developed by a single, hearing-impaired woman, it lends a unique depth and empathy. It utilizes Foundation Models and on-device speech-to-text technology to generate instant translations and summaries of everyday conversations, while maintaining complete privacy for voice data. The app is available for the watch, iPhone, and iPad.

---

Structured

A daily planner built with SwiftUI, it makes time management and finding breaks easy. It's widely praised by the community of people with neurological needs for its clear design and use of Foundation Models to suggest and automatically fill tasks, making personal organization less stressful. The app is available for iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

---

🎮 Games

Sago Mini Jinja's Garden

A meticulously designed play world for young children, allowing them to play football, chase mice, and experiment with colorful hats. It requires no reading or interaction, and its inclusive features are so seamlessly integrated that parents may not even notice.

---

Pine Hearts

An emotionally moving adventure set in a warm, natural world. The protagonist, Tyke, returns to a nature reserve to commemorate his late father, and progresses on his journey with the help of others. The game offers inclusivity options before you begin playing: improved text clarity, control customization, and haptic feedback adjustments.

---

Civilization VII

The latest installment in the legendary strategy series offers a more comprehensive civilizational and cultural representation than ever before. It highlights leaders and civilizations rarely mentioned in mainstream games, such as human rights activist Harriet Tubman and Indian freedom fighter Lakshmi Bai, in a more respectful vision of universal human history.

---

Innovation category

This category honors and distinguishes apps and games that use Apple technologies in truly innovative ways within their category.

📱 Apps

Detail: AI Video Editor

It combines the ease of a camera app with the power of an AI-powered video editor. It automatically identifies "magical moments," removes silence, and edits footage from multiple angles in a single take. Ideal for podcasters and digital content creators who want professional-looking edits with minimal effort.

---

NBA: Live Games & Scores

It allows fans to watch five NBA games simultaneously on Apple Vision Pro. And thanks to a partnership with Spectrum, some Los Angeles Lakers games are now available in Apple Immersive Video with spatial audio, making viewers feel like they're right behind the basket.

---

D-Day: The Camera Soldier

A powerful interactive documentary that tells the story of a war photographer who participated in the Normandy landings through the eyes of his daughter, who knew nothing of her father's experiences. It uses a combination of immersive video, spatial audio, and interactive activities to open a powerful window into history and family bonds.

---

🎮 Games

TR-49

A gripping puzzle that poses a fantastical question: What if the codebreaking computers of World War II had continued to operate indefinitely? From the team behind the 2022 Overboard Award winner, this production delivers a non-linear narrative and delightful vintage puzzles. It was also nominated in the Interaction category for its exceptional sound design.

---

blue prince

An extraordinary adventure that blends exploration, puzzle-solving, and storytelling into something truly unique. Your mission: to find a secret room within a vast mansion. And the surprise: you are the one who builds the mansion from scratch, room by room. The story unfolds everywhere, from the pictures hanging on the walls to the handwritten notes.

---

Pickle Pro

It's one of the most authentic and exciting gaming experiences on visionOS, and at its core, it's a fantastic pickleball game. Every shot feels natural and precise, and thanks to the integration with SharePlay Personas, you can challenge friends online with customizable dimensions and appearances.

---

Category Four: Interaction

This category honors applications that offer intuitive interfaces and seamless controls, fully tailored to the platform they run on.

📱 Apps

The Outsiders: Athlete Tracker

From the developers of Gentler Streak comes this thoughtful fitness app. It features Training Readiness Score, a beautifully visualized graph that displays training load along with sleep quality, resting heart rate, and other metrics, to help athletes understand their training readiness.

---

Moonlitt: Moon Phase Tracker

A stylish app for tracking the phases and path of the moon and more, from the developers of the 2024 awards-nominated Sunlitt. It offers great visual simplicity for observing the sky, with an ascending display of astronomical data and AR tools for locating the moon.

---

Guide: Charts & Tables

The most elegant tide tracker on the app store. Its full-screen graphs present massive amounts of weather and ocean data in a clean and understandable way. Best of all, its color palette automatically changes to reflect the sky throughout the day.

---

🎮 Games

TR-49

The TR-49 was nominated again in this category thanks to its exceptional sound design. As players examine an antique machine in search of clues, they uncover rare audio files, and a narrator reacts audibly to each discovery, creating a truly immersive world.

---

Sago Mini Jinja's Garden

It was also nominated for its exceptional interactivity. It is a lesson in intuitive interaction design for children aged 3 to 6: no reading or complexity, just natural tugging and swiping gestures that allow planting seeds, cooking meals, and harvesting vegetables with pure joy.

---

Grand Mountain Adventure 2

A perfect example of touch control design in games. The gestures are smooth, easy to learn, and the response is instantaneous. It takes you to a meticulously crafted, imaginative winter world of ski resorts, forests, and wild trails, with striking visual aesthetics.

---

Category Five: Social Impact

This category honors apps that tangibly improve lives and highlight important issues.

📱 Apps

Primary: News in Depth

Founded by a former Associated Press journalist, this news platform, staffed by a team of editors and contributors specializing in various fields, is built on Vision Pro. It features a spatial approach to presenting news and key issues, moving beyond sensationalism and empty clickbait headlines.

---

Katha Room

The Indian bedtime stories app carries a deep cultural heritage, sharing tales inspired by Indian folklore, adorned with images influenced by traditional Indian Gond art with its intricate patterns and vibrant colors. It celebrates cultural diversity and revives ancient oral traditions.

---

Harvey

Apple Watch data—including heart rate variability, resting heart rate, sleep statistics, and activity levels—is transformed into actionable treatment recommendations. Because the recommendations are powered by on-device AI models, sensitive health data remains completely protected.

---

🎮 Games

Consume Me

A deeply personal and insightful life simulation that carefully and delicately explores the emotional realities of eating disorders. It cleverly and simply addresses topics of mental health, body image, and self-esteem through mini-games about everyday tasks such as exercise and applying makeup.

---

Flashing

Set in 2001, when Ecuador was on the verge of qualifying for its first-ever World Cup, the story is told through the eyes of 8-year-old Julián, depicting how sport can unite an entire culture. Its visual style is a unique blend of line drawings and street photography with dual-tone color effects.

---

Spilled!

A heartwarming and relaxing cleanup game about restoring polluted rivers and lakes, created by a solo developer living on a boat and passionate about environmental issues. In each level, she restores oil-contaminated water to crystal-clear purity, while rescuing cute pixel-art creatures.

---

🎨 Category Six: Aesthetics and Graphics

This category honors applications that excel in visuals, skillfully drawn interfaces, and high-quality animations with a consistent and distinctive style.

Tide Guide: Charts & Tables

It once again made its mark in the aesthetics category because its full-screen graphics and displays of marine data, from water temperature and wave height to hourly forecasts, are presented with exceptional visual clarity. Its color palette changes with the colors of the sky, making it a truly aesthetically pleasing experience to use.

---

Caradise

A stunning spatial car museum lets you open doors, explore seats, and hear the engines roar with 3D spatial sound. Created by a single developer, Peder Sandqvist, it even includes ambient light reflections on the metal roof. An incredible one-man experience.

---

(Not Boring) Camera

A retro photography app that evokes the ambiance of 70s and 80s cameras, with oversized buttons and touch-sensitive scroll wheels that make focusing and fine-tuning settings a joy. Easy to use for beginners, yet supports SuperRAW and professional filters for advanced photographers.

---

🎮 Games

Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition

A futuristic world in meticulous detail, from the intricate interiors of buildings to the imaginative designs of vehicles and the strikingly appealing character styles. The "For This Mac" setting automatically adjusts frame rate and image quality based on your device's capabilities.

---

Arknights: Endfield

An innovative RPG that pushes the boundaries of what's possible on iPhone and iPad, with stunning visuals, 3D battles, and expansive environments. The blend of team-based action and factory building offers endless fun for both strategy and construction enthusiasts.

---

SILT

A monochromatic visual experience that is both bleak and captivating. It plunges the player into a strange and unsettling underwater world. Don't miss the cleverly adaptive camera mechanics: it zooms in to follow you through narrow tunnels, then pulls back to reveal the enormous, earthquake-like head of a sea serpent.

The winners will be announced during WWDC 2026 from June 8-12, 2026. Winners will receive a cash prize and Apple devices to help them continue their innovations.

Source:

developer. apple