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2012 Apple Design Award Winners Announced

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Apr 12, 2001
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Apple today announced the winners of its annual Apple Design Awards at WWDC. Winning developers receive a MacBook Air, an iPad, an iPod touch, and the Apple Design Award cube trophy as well as a special ADA lanyard.

For apps to be eligible for ADA nomination, they must be distributed via the Mac or iOS App Store. This year's winners come from a range of genres, encompassing everything from games to education to art to music:

iPhone

Jetpack Joyride
National Parks by National Geographic
Where’s my Water?

NewImage13.png
iPad

Paper
Bobo Explores Light
DM1 the Drum Machine

Mac

DeusEx: Human Revolution
Sketch
Limbo

Student

Little Star
daWindci

Apple has included additional information about the apps and what made them stand out on the Apple Design Awards page.

Two years ago, as part of the focus on iOS at WWDC 2010, Apple did not include Mac applications in the Apple Design Awards competition. With OS X again playing a prominent role Apple's lineup and the Mac App Store gaining momentum, Mac applications returned to the ballot in 2011.

ADA winners in 2011 included Cut the Rope, Pixelmator and djay.

Article Link: 2012 Apple Design Award Winners Announced
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2012/06/11/2012-apple-design-award-winners-announced/
Last edited:
Deus Ex: Human Revolution has won a 2012 Apple Design Award. Well-deserved.
 
Interesting list, but is there anything particularly Mac-like about Deus Ex? Or are the ADAs just another token gesture ceremony Apple uses to vaguely signal its intents and desires, i.e. "We want all big game developers to do stuff for the Mac [and hope it runs on Intel HD Graphics 4000 [or worse]]".
 
«Winning developers receive a MacBook Air, an iPad, an iPod touch, and the Apple Design Award cube trophy as well as a special ADA lanyard. »

Cute, then those developers can waste their time playing with some gadgets - while an actual developer would appreciate more to receive the top-of-the line Mac Pro .... but that would be sort of insulting at the same time :D:cool:
 
Naaaaak said:
Interesting list, but is there anything particularly Mac-like about Deus Ex? Or are the ADAs just another token gesture ceremony Apple uses to vaguely signal its intents and desires, i.e. "We want all big game developers to do stuff for the Mac [and hope it runs on Intel HD Graphics 4000 [or worse]]".
Click to expand...

As long as it's on one of Apple's stores, I guess it's valid for the award?
 
2 of the 3 Mac winners are ports of games that started on other platforms. I have to admit when I go to the App Store on my Mac it's usually because I'm looking for a game. With desktop publishing, word processing, web design, video production and photo editing having been covered for decades now, are there any other apps that can really stand out beside games? I'm not sure what the apps would be, but it seems somehow to not honor the original intentions of the Mac to bring easier productivity to the masses. Of course, there's the other winner, Sketch. I haven't used it. I would if the App Store had a trial feature.
 
DM1 - The Drum Machine for iPhone and iPod touch was launched some days ago and has still a launch sale for a buck. The devs are working on midi and the ability to make your own kits/samples. But it does have WIST so highly recommended even if you have the iPad version already.

I have the iPad version since months and I am using it much. Tried the shiny new iPhone & iPod touch version (iPhone 4): Very good UI for the small devices. Sounds identically. Cool graphics. Easy to control, you don't need to be a musician. Simply use the randomizer function and take it or skip to the next. But even usable for profs of course. Fast loading times.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drum_machine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_sequencer

All electric musicians should have it! Don't miss the sale, folks!

Have a short but impressive demo video at the dev's website, put on your good headphones:
http://www.fingerlab.net/website/Fingerlab/DM1.html

mza_2089687888963396986.640x960-75.jpg


http://itunes.apple.com/app/dm1-for-iphone/id526650611?mt=8
 
Habakuk said:
Try djay or the very new vjay.
Click to expand...

That looks cool. I don't have an iPad though. My comment was specific to Mac apps. I do think there are really interesting new types of apps on mobile devices because of their ability to integrate with location in some really creative ways. But as of yet, I don't have an iPhone or iPad, just an iPod touch. I still far prefer using notebooks to mobile devices; although, I take my 13" MacBook Pro pretty much everywhere other people bring their smartphones, so it's pretty mobile and gives my forearms a workout.
 
swingerofbirch said:
With desktop publishing, word processing, web design, video production and photo editing having been covered for decades now, are there any other apps that can really stand out beside games?
Click to expand...

I was surprised they didn't pick one of the HTML5 editing apps out of principle. But tbh I still don't know what they are really good for.

Coda 2 would have been an obvious candidate too.

I only use the App Store for productivity gimmicks. Cobook, Dash for developers, Base for SQLite databases etc...
 
jlnr said:
I was surprised they didn't pick one of the HTML5 editing apps out of principle. But tbh I still don't know what they are really good for.

Coda 2 would have been an obvious candidate too.

I only use the App Store for productivity gimmicks. Cobook, Dash for developers, Base for SQLite databases etc...
Click to expand...

One other thing I was thinking that I didn't want to bring up because I thought it was O/T that not only do the categories for desktop apps seem already defined, for my purposes, they've gotten worse. I know Coda's great for writing by hand (which I'm not into), but back in the 90s, I loved GoLive, both before and for some period after Adobe owned it (they eventually discontinued it). I have tried all sorts of web-design programs and can't find anything with the sensibility of GoLive. Obviously you can't say all software's gone downhill because of me not finding a good web-design program, but I have to say I feel that both iMovie and iPhoto have decreased in quality over time--particularly the usability of iMovie since the '08 version. And I feel like those staples (at least the ones I relied on) have decreased in quality, while the apps you see for the Mac on the App Store, many of them seem like iOS apps: single purpose, e.g., an app that distorts photos, versus an app that itself is a platform, like GoLive, for example.

I also think it's interesting that for the iPhone category they didn't choose any of the apps they featured in the very sentimental promotional video they showed with educators and people who have a disability. This is a bit OT but I thought it was odd that Tim Cook started tearing up a couple of times when he said "This is why we get up in the morning." This is me playing Monday morning psychologist, but it seems like perhaps he is desperately seeking a reason his job is meaningful? Or could be depression and the idea of the apps being humanitarian in some way gives him a reason to live. The phrase "a reason to get up in the morning" is pretty severe sounding. All of that is to go back to the original point that since they emphasized these types of humanitarian apps so much, you think they might have gotten one of the awards.
 
Naaaaak said:
Interesting list, but is there anything particularly Mac-like about Deus Ex? Or are the ADAs just another token gesture ceremony Apple uses to vaguely signal its intents and desires, i.e. "We want all big game developers to do stuff for the Mac [and hope it runs on Intel HD Graphics 4000 [or worse]]".
Click to expand...

My thoughts exactly when I saw Limbo in the list. Having played it on Mac, Linux and Xbox, there's really nothing special or different about the Mac version. It's also been out for much longer than a year at this point, though presumably it's only been in the app store for less, but the game itself didn't change one bit in the transition. So a very odd choice all round, really.
 
Naaaaak said:
Interesting list, but is there anything particularly Mac-like about Deus Ex?
Click to expand...

The Mac edition is the Ultimate Edition which is Mac only, contains all the DLC including pre order exclusives. It also contains the game soundtrack and making of videos and trailers all with full artwork and metadata etc.

It also has the standard Feral Mac features like supporting cmd tab, setting your iChat to away when in full screen, reduced CPU usage when in the background etc. Many big games don't act like a Mac citizen when launched. We think a Mac game needs to act like a Mac application not a console/pc app with a Mac app icon.

I can tell you we are all really proud we did get honoured by Apple at the ADAs. It was unexpected and a little humbling to be mentioned alongside all the other winners.

Edwin
 
edddeduck said:
The Mac edition is the Ultimate Edition which is Mac only, contains all the DLC including pre order exclusives. It also contains the game soundtrack and making of videos and trailers all with full artwork and metadata etc.

It also has the standard Feral Mac features like supporting cmd tab, setting your iChat to away when in full screen, reduced CPU usage when in the background etc. Many big games don't act like a Mac citizen when launched. We think a Mac game needs to act like a Mac application not a console/pc app with a Mac app icon.

I can tell you we are all really proud we did get honoured by Apple at the ADAs. It was unexpected and a little humbling to be mentioned alongside all the other winners.

Edwin
Click to expand...

Great job on the win. Deus Ex:HR is one of my favourite games ever.
 
Its a shame that there are so many other great apps out there that never get anything. Too many games in this list for my liking.
 
These apps are good, however I would agree with others that there are many great apps out there that don't seem to get recognised. There's so many apps out there and with a lot of them being a bit rubbish, its hard for the good ones to float to he top.
 
I personally didn't like Jetpack Joyride... At all. So it's a surprise to me to see that number 1. Obviously I'm in the minority though - the numbers don't lie.

Congrats to all the developers.
 
Jetpack Joyride

...did Barry smash through the wall and collect his reward?
Probably easier if he had the magnetic power up!
 
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