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The 4 Best Designed iPhone Apps of the Year, According to Apple

The winners of the annual Apple Design Awards are in. These are the standout apps for iPhone.

Apple Design Awards 2025Apple

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Ahead of WWDC next week, where Apple will give us a first look at next-gen operating systems coming to all its various devices in the fall, the Cupertino giant has dropped its first app awards of the year.

That’s right, Apple has officially announced the winners of its annual Apple Design Awards, which it states “recognize innovation, ingenuity, and technical achievement in app and game design.”

As is tradition, Apple has split its Design Awards into six categories: 1) Delight and Fun, 2) Inclusivity, 3) Innovation, 4) Interaction, 5) Social Impact, and 6) Visuals and Graphics. And for each category, there are six finalists (three apps and three games) and two winners (one app and one game).

That’s 36 total apps and games that Apple has recognized in its Design Awards.

And while these recognized apps and games cover Apple’s entire device spectrum — from iPhone to Apple Vision Pro, Apple TV to Mac — we’ve highlighted the award-winning apps for iPhone below.

If you’re interested in the complete list of all of the Apple Design Award finalists (and winners) across all its devices, check out Apple’s blog post.

The Best Designed iPhone Apps of 2025

CapWords app, apple design award winnerApple

Winner: Delight and Fun

CapWords

What Apple says: “The delightful language-learning app CapWords offers an idea that’s as simple as it is revolutionary: Learn the name of a thing by taking a picture of it. With the snap of a camera and a fun animation, CapWords transforms everyday objects — coffee mugs, traffic cones, cupcakes — into interactive stickers. It’s both a dynamic new path to learning and a really fun thing to do; it’s hard to stop snapping pictures of everything around you. And each flash card transition is accompanied by a real-world sound, a little tweak that enhances the sensory experience (and helps the word stick). Equal fun for kids and adults, CapWords makes the whole world a language playground.”

Specs

Devices iPhone, iPad
Price Free
Speecify app, apple design award winnerApple

Winner: Inclusivity

Speechify – Text to Speech

What App says: “With hundreds of voices and more than 50 available languages, Speechify turns any written text into audio — everything from websites, documents, scans, PDFs, and more. The app offers an approachable UI with a variety of accessibility features — Dynamic Type and VoiceOver among them — that make it an instantly helpful tool for everyone: students, professionals, and leisure readers, as well as auditory learners and people with low vision. The design team clearly worked to reduce cognitive load all throughout the app too. Speechify is more than a great app; it’s a critical resource that helps people live their lives.”

Specs

Devices iPhone, iPad
Price Free
Play app, apple design award winnerApple

Winner: Innovation

Play: Create Better Apps

What Apple says: “For such a sophisticated tool, Play offers incredibly approachable prototyping capabilities that make design and development easier for everyone. Play helps designers create interactive prototypes using native SwiftUI frameworks, which can then be sent to Xcode and used for shipping finished apps. The well-designed UI is nicely organized, visually pleasing, and cleverly integrated with App Clips. Plus, everything you create in Play — including logic and interactions — matches perfectly with Xcode.”

Specs

Devices iPhone, Mac
Price Free
Watch Duty app, apple design award winnerApple

Winner: Social Impact

Watch Duty: Wildfire Maps

What Apple says: “When wildfires tore through southern California in January, Watch Duty served as a primary source for essential, ever-changing, and sometimes life-saving information. A non-commercial operation run by volunteers, Watch Duty once again proved itself the go-to app for a community impacted by wildfires, clearly and reliably offering updates, resources, and real-time guidance. Watch Duty’s core functions and integrations are certainly impressive in their own right. But the best thing that can be said is that the app continued to step up when it needed to.”

Specs

Devices iPhone, iPad
Price Free