2025 Apple Design Awards: Markers of Innovation Before WWDC
Apple’s announcement of the 2025 Apple Design Awards, made public less than a week before the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), offers keen insight into the company’s directional priorities for its ecosystem and developer community. The annual awards not only highlight technical excellence and design innovation but also illuminate emerging trends that may shape Apple's imminent software and hardware updates.
Distinctive App and Game Excellence Across Six Categories
According to Apple’s official press release the awards for 2025 were distributed across six core categories:
- Delight and Fun: CapWords (app), Balatro (game)
- Innovation: Play (app), PBJ – The Musical (game)
- Interaction: Taobao (app), Dredge (game)
- Inclusivity: Speechify (app), Art of Fauna (game)
- Social Impact: Watch Duty (app), Neva (game)
- Visuals and Graphics: Feather: Draw in 3D (app), Infinity Nikki (game)
In total, Apple selected twelve winners—one app and one game per category—alongside 36 finalists. The diversity of winners, spanning productivity, creative tools, and games, demonstrates the breadth of Apple’s platform and its encouragement of varied developer expression.
Shifting Categories Reflecting Apple’s Strategic Focus
One notable shift in 2025 is the absence of a dedicated “Spatial Computing” category, which was introduced in 2024. Despite this, Apple Vision Pro-compatible apps featured among winners and finalists, indicating that spatial computing remains strategically relevant even if not individually spotlighted this year. According to 9to5Mac, Apple’s selection criteria continue to favor apps that leverage advanced technologies such as machine learning and immersive experiences, which align with broader industry trends toward mixed reality and AI-driven features.
Accessibility and Social Impact as Benchmarks
Multiple winning and finalist apps, including Speechify (Inclusivity) and Watch Duty (Social Impact), emphasize not only technical achievement but also the integration of accessibility and community-centric features. This aligns with Apple’s longstanding efforts to make its platforms accessible to a global, diverse user base—an initiative that received specific praise from Susan Prescott, Vice President of Worldwide Developer Relations, who commended this year’s winners for their “deeply impactful” work.
Setting the Stage for WWDC
While Apple withheld specific technical details and made no mention of pricing or availability changes, the timing and content of the Design Awards reliably presage software priorities that will likely be revealed during the June 9 WWDC keynote. In past years, the awards have acted as bellwethers for new frameworks, API enhancements, and even hardware directions, with winning apps frequently showcased in engineering sessions or keynote demonstrations.
For Apple enthusiasts and developers monitoring the evolution of the platform, this year’s honorees point to sustained investment in accessibility, social good, and versatile user experiences—with a subtle but continuing nod to spatial computing. The official list of winners and finalists, now available on the Apple Developer site, provides an early look at the creative benchmarks that are shaping Apple’s app ecosystem as the next software generation approaches.