Apple's 12 best apps of 2017
Apple Design Award winners include the creators of
Apple Design Award winners include the creators of Blackbox, Lake Coloring, Elk, Splitter Critters and Kitchen Stories (Photo: Jefferson Graham)
And every June, Apple selects a handful of them as the best of the best, as part of its Design Awards, handed out to app makers at the Worldwide Developers Conference.
This year's winners are dominated by games, with five awards for playtime apps, along with cooking, productivity, photo, currency exchange and an e-mail assistant.
Let's take a look:
—Blackbox is a free game that uses iPhone tools to play--tilt it, shout at the speaker, there are even sound clues that help vision impaired folks to be able to play. Naturally, there are also in-app purchases starting at 99 cents for hints and extra game play. Blackbox is an example of "thinking creatively and finding the answer," an experience that "feels deeply rewarding, even profound," said Apple, in selecting it for a Design award.
—Lake is very simply a coloring book for the iPhone or iPad, it’s a lot of fun, but not cheap. Subscriptions start at $2.99 weekly or $7.99 monthly, and you’re promised one new piece of art daily, including works by Instagram artists.
—Kitchen Stories gives video lessons on cooking, step-by-step photo directions, shopping lists and the ability to create your own cookbook. The app is free, but you’ll need to pay in-app purchases for the content. Beyond the iPhone and iPad, Kitchen Stories is also optimized for Apple TV.
—Elk is a $3.99 currency converter for travelers.
—Bear, a free note-taking app, for creating thoughts, code and even sketches, where "linking notes is as easy as dropping a hashtag, and formatting your work is a total breeze," says Apple. For $14.99 yearly subscription, Bear uses get to sync the notes across multiple devices and get access to different templates.
—Things 3 is a $9.99 task manager to drag and drop to-dos. "The unicorn of productivity tools," says Apple.
—Airmail costs $4.99 and promises to pull all your e-mail into one place. Said Apple: “We loved the ability to hit snooze on messages we want to return to later.”
—Enlight is a photo app that's been around for awhile--since 2015, when it was selected as a runner-up for App of the year in the United States. Apple calls it the "best all-in-one photo editor."
The other games include Splitter Critters ($2.99) which lets you rip and rearrange the screen to help aliens get back to their spaceship, Old Man’s Journey ($4.99) a puzzle using hand-drawn worlds and hidden paths, Mushroom II ($4.99) a puzzle that asks you to erase goo to make your way and finally, for $2.99, you collect limbs on your journey when playing Severed.
Keep in mind that the Design awards are not for best selling or most downloaded apps, but instead to show the best of the best. Apple responds in kind with increased promotion of the apps in the App Store, which may or not pay off with increased visibility and downloads. Last year's winners included the high-profile Lara Croft Go game and Zova workout routine, along with the games like Streaks, Inks and Chameleon Run, the music apps Auxy and djay Pro, and Ulysses for writing.