Apple Design Awards - 2026 finalists - Apple Developer

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We’re thrilled to announce this year’s finalists.

Delight and Fun | Inclusivity | Innovation | Interaction | Social Impact | Visuals and Graphics

Delight and Fun

Finalists in this category provide memorable, engaging, and satisfying experiences enhanced by Apple technologies.

Apps

Blippo+

Panic, Inc., United States

macOS

Aimed at a very specific demographic of channel-surfers, DIY-aesthetic aficionados, and anyone seeking an alternative to modern streamers, Blippo+ is a retro-futurist TV with multiple channels of bizarre, ad-free programs reminiscent of the highest numbers on the UHF dial. (Ask your elders.) The aggressively — and often purposely cringe — DIY content is the main draw, but Panic has paid incredible attention to its world-building details, reviving ancient graphics, fonts, and buttons down to the last enormous pixelated digit. And get this: The “broadcast” is synchronized, which means everyone watches the same irreverence together. (Ask your elders about that too.)

Metaballs

Apposite, United States

iOS, visionOS

This bubbly visionOS experience lets people create spatial blobs, bubbles, and shapes out of a variety of colors and materials, all of which can be pushed, poked, prodded, and pulled apart. Conjuring up gelatinous shapes on the spatial canvas is a joy, and the way they react to shifts in lighting is a marvel. As an added bonus, people can export USDZ files to use in other projects.

grug

Ocho, Netherlands

iOS

This playful app delivers daily wisdom in Neolithic grunts, and looks good doing it. Reading daily grug affirmations like “only walking grug find breakthrough … sitting grug find nothing” is a primal joy. But it’s the scribbled design that really pops; it’s a little masterpiece of clever simplicity that never takes itself too seriously. (Check out the app’s hand-drawn status bar, and its release notes.) Appropriately for an app from the Stone Age, there’s no login, no cloud syncing, nothing extraneous — just a simple idea that smart developer do good.

Games

PowerWash Simulator

FuturLab Limited, United Kingdom

Square Enix Collective

iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, visionOS

For a particular type of person, there can be no greater joy than blasting caked-on grime off an old van (so we’ve heard). True to its title, this hygienic game is inexplicably satisfying, thanks to thoughtful touches like specific haptic feedback for each hose nozzle. And just when you think you’re destined to clean up another filthy backyard, the game’s narrative takes a hard left turn into time travel, mysterious cat gatherings, and an ancient temple — a fitting backdrop for a game that provides plenty of zen.

Is This Seat Taken?

Poti Poti Studio, Spain

iOS, iPadOS, macOS

A tricky puzzler dressed up as a Saturday morning cartoon, this delightful logic game hides its puzzles in a fun narrative about the perils of sitting near others in buses, restaurants, and other familiar places. Assign people to their preferred seats in accordance with their strange personality quirks (or, in the case of folks who don’t want to sit by the unshowered, totally logical quirks). Plenty of attention is lavished on surrounding elements: Tapping objects in each scene produces playful and unexpected responses, and the interface hides its own Easter eggs. With no timers but lots of smiles, Is This Seat Taken? is worth keeping close at hand.

Ball x Pit

Kenny Sun Studios, United States

Devolver Digital

iOS, iPadOS

Bursting with frantic, ricochet-fueled combat, the RPG roguelite Ball x Pit turns a simple idea — fling super-powered balls at descending hordes of foes — into a wildly satisfying spin on a vintage arcade experience. And its retro visuals and chaotic collision animations really pop on iPhone and iPad displays that support HDR.

Inclusivity

Finalists in this category provide a great experience for all by reflecting a variety of backgrounds, abilities, and languages.

Apps

Guitar Wiz

Bijoy Thangaraj, India

iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS

This all-in-one toolkit for guitarists — built with SwiftUI by solo developer Bijoy Thangaraj — offers an impressive array of inclusivity features. Robust VoiceOver integration provides spoken information and instructions on everything from pitch to chord guidance to where players should place their fingers on the frets. Guitar Wiz also supports Dynamic Type, Increased Contrast, and Differentiate Without Color to enable people of all abilities to play with autonomy.

Hearing Buddy

Lilly Seay, United States

iOS, iPadOS, watchOS

Created by a solo developer with hearing loss, Hearing Buddy is shaped by experience. The thoughtful app uses the Foundation Models framework and on-device speech-to-text features to quickly generate real-time captions and summaries of spoken conversations. Reliable, supportive, and easy to work with, it’s everything you need in a good buddy.

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