Nominees for the 2026 Apple Design Awards

On the 15th of this month, and in preparation for the annual WWDC 2026 developer conference scheduled to kick off on June 8th, Apple announced the list of nominees for the Design Awards. Every year, these awards honor 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, and the winners will be revealed during the WWDC 2026 conference ceremonies. These apps are divided into Delight and Entertainment, Inclusivity, Innovation, Interaction, Social Impact, and Visuals and Graphics. Here are the details of each category and its apps.

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Delight and Entertainment Category

This category honors apps and games that provide users with memorable, engaging, and satisfying experiences, and that leverage Apple technologies creatively.

📱Apps

Blippo+

A Mac-only TV app that broadcasts multiple channels of shows reminiscent of the vintage television era. What sets it apart is that the broadcast is synchronized among all users, so everyone sees the same content at the same time. Panic has paid great attention to every design detail, from fonts and buttons to the chunky pixels, to revive the aesthetics of the early digital era.

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Metaballs

A mesmerizing spatial experience on the Vision Pro headset, allowing you to shape gelatinous bubbles and droplets in a 3D space. You can push, pull, and distort these shapes, and they interact realistically with the ambient lighting in your room. Creations can also be exported in USDZ format for use in other projects.

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Grug

A simple and ingenious daily app that delivers wisdom and proverbs from a fictional caveman, with funny sentences. It features a fully hand-drawn design, with a custom status bar and a charming, childlike aesthetic. No cloud, no login, just simple daily wisdom.

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🎮 Games

PowerWash Simulator

The ultimate relaxation game, putting you in front of the task of cleaning all kinds of dirt with a pressure washer, with precise haptic feedback that varies depending on the nozzle. However, the story takes an exciting turn toward time travel, mysterious cat gatherings, and ancient temples.

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Is This Seat Taken

A clever puzzle game with a cartoon style, revolving around seating people in their favorite spots on buses and in restaurants according to their quirky personalities. It features fun details and surprising reactions when touching elements of the scene, with hidden Easter eggs in the interface, all without time pressure.

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Ball x Pit

An action-packed RPG based on a simple idea: firing super-powered balls at swarms of enemies, turning it into a delightful and satisfying classic arcade experience. Its retro visuals and chaotic collision movements shine remarkably on iPhones and iPads that support HDR technology.

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Inclusivity Category

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

📱Apps

Hearing Buddy

Developed by a solo developer who suffers from hearing loss, which has given it real depth and empathy. It relies on Foundation Models and on-device speech-to-text technology to generate instant subtitles and summaries for daily conversations, while maintaining complete privacy of audio data. The app is for Apple Watch, iPhone, and iPad.

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Structured

A daily planner built with SwiftUI, allowing for easy time management and finding break periods. It is widely praised by the neurodivergent community for its clear design and use of Foundation Models to suggest and auto-fill tasks, making personal organization less overwhelming. The app is for iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

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🎮 Games

Sago Mini Jinja’s Garden

A play world designed with extreme care for young children, enabling them to play soccer, chase a mouse, and try on colorful hats. It requires no reading-based interaction and integrates inclusivity features so naturally that parents might not even notice them at all.

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Pine Hearts

An emotionally moving adventure in a warm natural world. The protagonist, Tyke, returns to a nature reserve to evoke the memory of his late father, progressing on his journey with the help of others. The game offers inclusivity options before starting: improving text clarity, customizing controls, and adjusting sensory feedback.

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Civilization VII

The latest installment in the legendary strategy series, offering more inclusive cultural and civilizational 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 comprehensive human history.

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Innovation Category

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

📱 Apps

Detail: AI Video Editor

Combines the ease of a camera app with the power of an AI-powered video editor. It automatically identifies “magic moments,” removes silences, and edits a multi-angle video clip into a single shot. Perfect for podcasters and digital content creators who want professional editing with minimal effort.

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NBA: Live Games & Scores

Allows fans to follow five NBA games simultaneously on Apple Vision Pro. Thanks to a partnership with Spectrum, some Los Angeles Lakers games are now available in Apple Immersive Video with spatial audio, making the viewer feel as if they are right behind the basketball hoop.

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D-Day: The Camera Soldier

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

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🎮 Games

TR-49

A suspenseful puzzle that poses a fictional question: What if World War II code-breaking computers never stopped running? It brings you a production from the team behind the 2022 winner, Overboard!, with non-linear storytelling and wonderful vintage puzzles. It was also nominated in the Interaction category for its exceptional sound design.

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Blue Prince

An exceptional adventure that blends exploration, puzzle-solving, and storytelling into something unique. Your mission: find a secret room inside a vast palace. The surprise: you are the one building the palace from scratch, room by room. The story unfolds everywhere, from pictures hanging on the walls to handwritten notes.

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Pickle Pro

Considered one of the most exciting authentic gaming experiences on visionOS, it is essentially a fantastic pickleball game. Every hit feels natural and precise, and thanks to integration with SharePlay Personas, you can challenge friends online with custom dimensions and appearances.

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Category Four: Interaction

This category honors apps that provide intuitive interfaces and smooth controls, perfectly tailored to the platform they run on.

📱 Apps

The Outsiders: Athlete Tracker

From the developers of Gentler Streak comes this well-thought-out fitness app. It features a Training Readiness Score, a beautiful graphical representation that displays training load alongside sleep quality, resting heart rate, and other metrics to help athletes know how ready they are to train.

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Moonlitt: Moon Phase Tracker

An elegant app for tracking moon phases, paths, and more, coming from the developers of Sunlitt, a 2024 award nominee. It offers wonderful visual simplicity for observing the sky, with an ascending display of astronomical data and AR tools for locating the moon.

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Tide Guide: Charts & Tables

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

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🎮 Games

TR-49

TR-49 is nominated again in this category thanks to its exceptional sound design. As players examine an antique machine for clues, they discover rare audio files and a narrator who reacts vocally to every discovery, creating a truly convincing world.

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Sago Mini Jinja’s Garden

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

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Grand Mountain Adventure 2

A perfect example of touch control design in games. The gestures are smooth, quick to learn, and responsive. It takes you into a beautifully crafted winter world of ski resorts, forests, and wilderness trails, with striking visual aesthetics.

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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, it works with a team of editors and specialized contributors around the world. This news platform on Vision Pro features a spatial way of viewing news and pivotal issues, away from sensationalism and empty clickbait headlines.

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Katha Room

An Indian bedtime story app that carries 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 honors cultural diversity and revives ancient oral traditions.

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Harvee

Transforms Apple Watch data—heart rate variability, resting heart rate, sleep statistics, and activity levels—into actionable therapeutic recommendations. Because the recommendations work via on-device AI models, sensitive health data remains fully protected.

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🎮 Games

Consume Me

A personal and deep life simulation that carefully and sensitively addresses the emotional reality of eating disorders. It intelligently and simply tackles topics of mental health, body image, and self-esteem through mini-games about daily tasks like exercise and applying makeup.

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Despelote

Set in 2001, when Ecuador was on the verge of qualifying for its first World Cup in history. The story is told through the eyes of 8-year-old Julian, describing how sports can unite an entire culture. Its visual style is a unique blend of line drawings and street photography with double-color effects.

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Spilled!

A warm and relaxing cleaning game about restoring the health of polluted rivers and lakes, created by a solo developer who lives on a boat and is passionate about environmental issues. In each level, you restore oil-polluted water to crystal clarity, while rescuing cute pixel-art creatures.

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🎨 Category Six: Visuals and Graphics

This category honors apps that shine in imagery, skillfully drawn interfaces, and high-quality animations with a consistent and distinct character.

Tide Guide: Charts & Tables

Appears again in the Visuals category because its full-screen charts and marine data displays—from water temperature to wave height and hour-by-hour forecasts—are presented with rare visual clarity. Its color palette changes with the colors of the sky, making usage a truly aesthetic experience.

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Caradise

A stunning spatial car museum that lets you open doors, explore seats, and hear engine roars in 3D spatial audio. Created by a solo developer, Peder Sandqvist, including ambient light reflections on the metal roof. An incredible experience from one person.

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(Not Boring) Camera

A retrospective camera app that brings back the atmosphere of 70s and 80s cameras, with large buttons and tactile scroll wheels that make adjusting focus and fine settings a fun experience. Easy to use for beginners, yet it supports SuperRAW and professional filters for advanced photographers.

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🎮 Games

Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition

A futuristic world with precise details, from the intricate interior design of buildings to the imaginative vehicle designs and the striking, attractive character styles. The “For This Mac” setting automatically adjusts frame rate and image quality according to the device’s capabilities.

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Arknights: Endfield

An innovative RPG that pushes the boundaries of what is possible on iPhone and iPad, with stunning visual art, 3D battles, and vast environments. The mix of team action and factory building offers endless fun for fans of strategy and building alike.

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SILT

A visual experience that is both bleak and enchanting in monochrome. It pushes the player into a strange and unsettling underwater world. Don’t miss the camera work that adapts intelligently: zooming in to follow you through narrow tunnels, then pulling back to reveal the size of a massive, earthquake-like sea serpent’s head.

The winners will be announced during WWDC 2026 from June 8 to June 12, 2026. Winners will receive a physical award and Apple hardware to help them continue their creative work.

Source:

developer.apple