App Store Awards 2025: AI quietly took over
Apple announced its 2025 App Store Award winners, narrowing 45 finalists down to 17 apps and games. No single "AI app of the year," yet AI runs through the list.
The iPhone app winner, Tiimo, is a visual AI planner that turns to-dos into a realistic schedule. On iPad, Detail's "Auto Edit" uses AI for silence removal, zoom cuts, and clean titles. Cultural Impact winners like StoryGraph, Be My Eyes, and Apple Watch winner Strava also lean on AI for recommendations, visual assistance, and workout insights.
Winners at a glance
- iPhone App of the Year: Tiimo
- iPhone Game of the Year: Pokémon TCG Pocket
- iPad App of the Year: Detail
- iPad Game of the Year: DREDGE
- Mac App of the Year: Essayist
- Mac Game of the Year: Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition
- Apple Arcade Game of the Year: WHAT THE CLASH?
- Apple Vision Pro App of the Year: Explore POV
- Apple Vision Pro Game of the Year: Porta Nubi
- Apple Watch App of the Year: Strava
- Apple TV App of the Year: HBO Max
- Cultural Impact: Chants of Sennaar; Be My Eyes; Focus Friend; Art of Fauna; despelote; StoryGraph
Apple first named 45 finalists in November. The final list celebrates apps that offer useful tools, encourage better habits, and push inclusive design forward.
The pattern: AI assistants inside everyday apps
- Assistive by default: Tiimo breaks tasks into steps with estimated durations. Detail trims silence and handles zoom cuts without extra setup.
- Immediate value: The best features work in under a minute and save multiple steps (auto-edit, auto-schedule, auto-describe).
- Focused, explainable outputs: Clear timelines, clean edits, concise insights. Small wins beat flashy features.
- Accessibility as a product edge: Be My Eyes shows how AI can provide real utility for blind and low-vision users.
- Telemetry to insights: Strava turns raw workout data into coaching moments, not just charts.
Why it matters for product, engineering, and IT
- AI is a feature, not the brand: Winners embed AI to remove friction across core workflows. Ship assistive features inside existing flows.
- Latency and privacy win trust: Favor fast, local, and minimal-permission experiences. Cache, precompute, and explain what's happening.
- Constrain models with UX: Guardrails, presets, and one-tap actions produce consistent outputs and fewer edge-case failures.
- Accessibility is product strategy: Vision and audio models open new user segments and use cases. Prioritize this in your roadmap.
Practical ideas you can ship next sprint
- Add an "Auto" button to your top workflow (edit, summarize, schedule, annotate).
- Offer time estimates with a feedback loop to improve accuracy over a week.
- Provide one-tap explanations: "Why this edit?" "Why this schedule?"
- Bundle multi-step actions into templates (e.g., trim + title + caption in one go).
- Ship an accessibility feature using on-device vision or speech models.
- Log interventions and outcomes to learn which assists users repeat.
Notes for game and media teams
- Short sessions on mobile still win; depth can live in progression systems and social loops.
- Cross-device presence matters: mobile first, but support TV, Watch, and spatial where useful.
- Keep onboarding thin and let highlights sell the experience in the first minute.
Cultural Impact highlights
Be My Eyes proves AI can deliver life-improving help through visual descriptions. StoryGraph shows how reading data plus machine learning can drive personal, relevant recommendations.
Focus Friend taps into healthy constraints. Art of Fauna, despelote, and Chants of Sennaar show there's demand for calm, narrative, and thoughtful play-not just spectacle.
For further reading and training
Explore Apple's App Store editorials for context on selection and trends: App Store.
If you're building AI features and want structured practice, browse role-based programs here: Courses by job and Popular certifications.
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