Just about three weeks after Apple revealed the 45 finalists in its 2024 App Store Awards, it’s time to unveil the best of the best. That’s right – Apple just announced the 2024 App Store Award winners, and there are 17 of them, including the best apps and games for the iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, Apple TV, and the Apple Vision Pro. Additionally, six apps are walking away as Cultural Impact winners.
Many big names and smaller titles have been chosen to receive the highest honor for an app from Apple. The winners walk away with a hefty – trust us, we briefly held one – aluminum, bright blue App of the Year award engraved with the app's name. It’s roughly the size of an oversized Mac Mini.
We’re sharing a few of our favorites across categories and the full list of winners. But as you might expect, these apps are definitely worth a download, considering Apple’s deemed them to be its 2024 App Store Award Winners.
2024 App Store Award Winners – the full list
- iPhone App of the Year: Kino
- iPhone Game of the Year: AFK Journey
- iPad App of the Year: Moises
- iPad Game of the Year: Squad Busters
- Mac App of the Year: Adobe Lightroom
- Mac Game of the Year: Thank Goodness You're Here!
- Apple Vision Pro App of the Year: What If...? An Immersive Story
- Apple Vision Pro Game of the Year: THRASHER: Arcade Odyssey
- Apple Watch App of the Year: Lumy
- Apple TV App of the Year: F1 TV
- Apple Arcade Game of the Year: Balatro+
- Cultural Impact Winners: Oko, EF Hello, DailyArt, NYT Games, The Wreck, and Do You Really Want to Know? 2
You'll likely know the makers of Kino, aka Lux Optics, for their popular camera app Halide, but this one is all about video recording and even packs in support for Apple's Log Recording standard.
Kino is like a Halide for video, but is instead designed for beginners as well as enthusiasts. You can shoot 'cinematic' video – which covers color, tone and motion – by quickly applying what Kino's makes call an 'instant grade'. You can choose from one of many grades created by artists, or instead go into full manual mode with Apple ProRes and tweak settings like frame-rates, shutter speed and more.
As is the theme with most year-end lists, AI is involved here and likely best represented via the iPad App of the Year, Moises. The name is a subtle pun at its ability to separate sounds on a track, and that makes sense as it's for musicians and producers. You can either record sessions within the app or upload files into Moises to have its AI models split instruments, including vocals, on a given track, automatically add an approximately timed metronome, or even change the key.
It's pretty neat, and in a quick demo where we did not sing or play an instrument, it did work quite well on a 13-inch iPad Pro via the built-in microphones. From a generative AI standpoint, a future update will allow it to automatically play on a track, much like session players within Logic Pro for iPad. Similarly, Adobe Lightroom – the 2024 Mac App of the Year – boasts several AI features and runs well on any M-series-powered Mac.
2024 is also the first year that Apple Vision Pro apps are included in the App Store Awards, and we can't agree more with What If...? – An Immersive Story getting the top brass for Apple's spatial computer.
In our hands-on with the story that you basically get immersed in and play through, we called it the "most fun [we’ve] had on the device" and a taste of future impactful, immersive content that would arrive. And if you have a Vision Pro, here is a friendly reminder that this experience is free and a blast.
Of course, considering so many people play the Wordle daily – including TechRadar's Global Editor-in-Chief Marc McLaren – it clearly has had an impact on our culture, and the NYT Games app is an excellently-designed app that not only lets you easily play each title but can also introduce you to other titles you might not have tried – maybe give Connections or Strands a try?
Oko, another one of the cultural impact winners, is super impressive and a key tool for accessibility, as it uses an AI model layered on top of the iPhone's camera to help folks with low vision or who are blind safely navigate streets. It's quite impressive and shows just how impactful an application can truly be.
While these are only a few of the 17 total apps getting the highest honor from the App Store, all of these that made the list are likely worth a try. And that's the case whether you've had an iPhone, Mac, Apple Watch, iPad, Apple Vision Pro, or Apple TV for a while or are maybe getting one – or hoping to get one – this holiday season. Apple's 2024 App App Store Award Winners list is an excellent place to start for what to download first.
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