Top Five Apps that won Apple Design Award 2015

Apple Design Awards are bestowed on the apps that are unique and revolutionary in their design, functionality and features. The winners are acclaimed apps that are complete in more ways than one.

Fantastical 2

Fantastical 2 is a well-designed, full-featured calendar app that is developed for the Mac OS X Yosemite.

Why did it win? It won an Apple Design Award for the clean design and very rich functionality. The app also boasts of ample speed, quick responsiveness, fantastic support for localizations, along with very deep integration with OS X.

• It sports a robust, localized, natural language parser for quick event creation especially for complex recurring events and also includes conversational requests.
• The location-aware calendar helps users to manage schedules and the min-window offers a helpful companion.
• It also supports Handoff to easily move data from Mac to iPhone and vice-versa.
• It can quickly scroll through appointments and also offers Action and Share extensions.
• Includes adaptable calendar views, time-zone support with flexible scheduling options.
• It supports MapKit, Geo-fencing, Applescript, and iCloud reminders.
• It works with other calendaring services offering native CalDAV, iCloud, Google, Yahoo, and is localized in varied languages including English, French, German and the like.

Metamorphabet

Metamorphabet is an animated alphabet app that features a playful and interactive learning experience.

Why did it win? Metamorphabet won an Apple Design Award for its creativity, fantastic physics-based layout, incredibly smooth animations, and design that provokes exploratory instincts for students.

• Metamorphabet delivers a great experience with its refined color palette.
• It has delightful sound effects and an incredible sound design.
• It is available for the iOS universe only.

Workflow

Workflow is a very powerful automation tool that connects apps and actions to get things done on a routine basis.

Why did it win? Workflow won the Apple Design Award for its use of iOS accessibility features, and also delivers an apt implementation for VoiceOver.

• The creators of Workflow focused on true accessibility with the help of uncluttered design and great usability consideration.
• Includes seamless accessibility features and unmatched support for iOS features.
• It has well-labelled items, useful hints, and various drag/drop announcements, that is great to aid blind people.

Does Not Commute

Does Not Commute is an addictive driving game for iOS.

Why did it win? Does Not Commute won an Apple Design Award for the stylized visuals and beautiful aesthetic reminiscent of the 1960s in each of the details.

• The driving game has surprising depth, balance of story, interesting characters, and mind-blowing action.
• It benefits from a time traveller’s paradox where players have to race themselves and even complete challenges during the course of the game.
• The mistakes while racing can create a ripple effect thus affecting the racer in the games being played later.
• The increased complexity is its plus point since it starts out as a relaxing commute and then delves into chaos.
• Each driver is a unique character, and boasts of a unique back story.
• The app uses a custom-built graphics engine and supports iCloud for game state synchronization.
• The on-boarding experience is great and the game is available in different languages too.

Crossy Road

Crossy Road is an addictive arcade hopper game.

Why did it win? Crossy Road won an Apple Design Award because it features countless surprises, whimsical fun, artwork, and blends art, commerce and design into a heady cocktail including a unique heart and personality.

• Crossy Road is a new take of the arcade hopper game with viral and exciting gameplay.
• It features a beautiful, 8-bit isometric design with characters, smart and hilarious collision animations.
• It also features excellent sound design and adds variety through in-App purchases.
• The app is localized in various languages and debuted on iOS.

In Closing

Each of these apps deserve the praise and award given out to them. Their uniqueness and overall functionality has landed them in the pantheon of great apps of the year in terms of design.

Nisarg Shah

Nisarg is the Business Development Manager at Nimblechapps, a top mobile game development company and has been with the organisation since its inception in 2014. He likes to update his knowledge on changing trends in technology and marketing and pens his thoughts regarding the same on various blogs and LinkedIn.