Apple on Wednesday announced the list of winners and finalists of the Design Awards 2025 across several app and game categories. Presented each year since 1996, the annual awards commemorate developers and their work on bringing innovation and technical advancements to their apps across Apple devices like iPhone, iPad, and Mac. A total of 12 standout apps and games have been announced as the winners this year, with CapWords winning in the Delight and Fun category while Speechify was declared as the best Inclusivity app.
Apple Design Awards 2025 Winners
| Category | App Winner | Game Winner |
|---|---|---|
| Delight and Fun | CapWords | Balatro |
| Inclusivity | Speechify | Art of Fauna |
| Innovation | Play | PBJ — The Musical |
| Interaction | Taobao app for the Apple Vision Pro | Dredge |
| Social Impact | Watch Duty: Wildfire Maps | Neva |
| Visuals and Graphics | Feather: Draw in 3D | Infinity Nikki |
Delight and Fun
Apple announced the winners of its Design Awards 2025 in a blog post. Among the victors is CapWords, developed by China’s HappyPlan Tech, which was awarded in the Delight and Fun category for apps. These apps provide memorable experiences which are aided by Apple’s technologies, as per the company. CapWords is a language learning app that enables users to learn the name of an app by taking a snapshot of it with the camera. It converts captured objects such as coffee mugs and traffic cones into interactive sticker-based flash cards.
Meanwhile, Balatro won the same award in the games category. Developed by Playstack Limited, it is a deck-building game which provides a mix of Solitaire and Poker where the objective is to defeat Boss Blinds by making strong poker hands.
Inclusivity
Apple’s Design Award for Inclusivity was bagged by Speechify, a text-to-speech app developed by a US-based company of the same name. This honour is provided to apps that provide an experience catering to a variety of backgrounds, abilities, and languages, as per Apple. The app can convert any text to audio, such as websites, documents, PDFs, and more, for enhanced accessibility. It also bundles features such as Dynamic Type, VoiceOver, and support for many voices in over 50 languages.
In games, Art of Fauna bagged the award. It is a puzzle game that involves soldering wildlife puzzles by either rearranging the image on the front of the card or re-ordering the textual description at the back. The game offers accessibility features like colour themes, VoiceOver support, and phobia settings.
Innovation
Play, developed by US-based developer Rabbit 3 Times, was declared the winner in the Innovation category. It is an app development tool which is aimed at helping designers create interactive apps using native SwiftUI frameworks. These can be carried over to Xcode for putting out finished apps. Play is said to contain native iOS elements like Apple Maps, Swift Charts, date pickers, modals.
PBJ — The Musical was announced as the Innovation award winner in games. It is a stop-motion style game which tells an intentionally inaccurate story of the origin of Peanut Butter and Jelly. The game offers animated paper landscapes and music from Lorraine Bowen’s The Crumble Lady album, along with remixes from other artists.
Interaction
In the Interaction category, the Taobao app for the Apple Vision Pro was awarded as the winner. It is an extension of the Chinese e-commerce platform which has 3D models that are comparable to their real-world counterparts. As per Apple, buyers can compare items side-by-side by tweaking their placement, position, and size.
Meanwhile, Dredge was the winner in the games segment. It is a fishing horror role-playing adventure game from New Zealand-based Black Salt Games. The game focuses on a fisherman who encounters Lovecraftian creatures during their fishing journey in an open-world archipelago.
Social Impact
Apple’s Social Impact category celebrates apps which tackle crucial issues. The top spot was grabbed by Watch Duty: Wildfire Maps, a wildfire mapping and alert app that provides information in real-time, submitted by real people and vetted by professionals. As per Apple, it served as the primary source of information when wildfires affected San Diego County in California earlier this year.
Neva was awarded as the top game in the Social Impact category. It is a puzzle-platform game which follows the story of a girl and her pet wolf. Players have the responsibility of escorting them to safety as they traverse through a decaying world with the ever-changing seasons.
Visuals and Graphics
Developed by South Korean developer Sketchsoft, Feather: Draw in 3D was announced as the winner in the Visuals and Graphics category. As the name suggests, it is a 3D drawing app which can transform 2D designs into 3D creations. It is compatible only with the iPad and takes advantage of touch-based as well as Apple Pencil interactions.
Meanwhile, Infinity Nikki defeated Control Ultimate Edition and Neva in the games segment. It is a free to play action-adventure game and the fifth installment in the series where players dress up to explore the open world, interact with the environment, and uncover hidden mysteries.
