Apple names 2025 Design Awards winners

Days before its Worldwide Developers Conference 2025 (WWDC), Apple has named the winners and finalists of its 2025 Design Awards for apps.

This year’s winners and finalists mostly include indie apps and startups, and contrary to the trend everywhere else, generative AI apps are noticeably missing from the list. This is the second year in a row Apple has skipped AI-centric apps for its awards.

The company did highlight some apps with AI features, though, including Speechify (which won in the Inclusivity category), and music creation and editing app Moises (both are venture-backed startups).

Unsurprisingly, Apple focuses more on how developers have used its tools to build better experiences.

The company named 12 winners (one app and one game in each) across six categories: Delight and Fun, Innovation, Interaction, Inclusivity, Social Impact, and Visuals and Graphics. In its list of finalists this year, Apple highlighted a large number of apps and games from small developers around the world.

Watch Duty, which helped share information during California wildfires, won the award in the social impact category. Meanwhile, M13-backed developer prototyping tool Play was awarded the best app in the innovation category.

Here is the full list of winners:

Delight and Fun

• CapWords
• Balatro

Inclusivity

• Speechify
• Art of Fauna

Innovation

• Play
• PBJ — The Musical

Interaction

• Taobao
• DREDGE

Social Impact

• Watch Duty: Wildfire Maps
• Neva

Visuals and Graphics

• Feather: Draw in 3D
• Infinity Nikki