BEST OF 2020
The best apps and games of 2020
Like so many things in 2020, our Best Of awards feel different this year.
How could they not? We needed games and apps like never before.
As in years past, our search began with a global call to action: App Store editors around the world combed through the catalogue to find the most well-crafted, culturally relevant and helpful apps and games. We spent months playing and testing the most promising to come up with an extraordinary list for an extraordinary year.
That’s why this year’s winners did more than impress us with their technical innovation and gorgeous design. They enabled us to learn and create. They helped us connect and discover new ways to feel close. They reminded us to take care of ourselves. And they helped us exhale and have fun.
We’re honoured to celebrate the developers who stepped up for us all this year.
This year’s Best Of winners will receive a newly designed award, precision-milled from a recycled aluminium alloy with diamond-cut edges.
iPhone App of the Year: Wakeout!
‣ Why we love it: Wakeout helped us find the time – and the will – to keep moving, with easy exercises that made the most of life at home.
iPhone Game of the Year: Genshin Impact
‣ Why we love it: The open-world RPG freed gamers to explore a massive realm filled with colourful monsters and earthshaking titans, all brought to life with cutting-edge visual effects.
iPad App of the Year: Zoom
‣ Why we love it: With incredible ease of use and rock-solid reliability, Zoom went from business-conferencing app to where life just happens.
iPad Game of the Year: Legends of Runeterra
‣ Why we love it: Set in the hugely popular League of Legends universe, this collectible card game stood out by turning each match into a contest of wits and savage strikes.
Mac App of the Year: Fantastical
‣ Why we love it: This must-have calendar app made it easier to collaborate and navigate our new world of remote meetings and video chats.
Apple Watch App of the Year: Endel
‣ Why we love it: Blurring the lines between music and wellness, this boundary-breaking app put an endlessly comforting and deeply personalised soundscape right on our wrist.
Apple TV Game of the Year: Dandara Trials of Fear
‣ Why we love it: Inspired by Dandara dos Palmares, a real-life warrior who fought to end slavery in colonial Brazil, this action-packed platformer’s gravity-defying gameplay literally turns your world upside down.
Arcade Game of the Year: Sneaky Sasquatch
‣ Why we love it: As a charming Big Foot living in the woods in this exploration game, your goal is to stay well fed – and get into a little mischief. It’s a welcome (and reliably hilarious) escape for the whole family.
Trend of the Year: helpfulness
Connecting families: Caribu
‣ Why we love it: When the pandemic struck, Caribu became a kid-friendly (and kid-safe) way for little ones to chat, read and play games with family members far away.
Leading the classroom: Explain Everything Whiteboard
‣ Why we love it: The interactive digital whiteboard facilitated a lively back-and-forth in the virtual classroom.
Reinventing play: Pokémon GO
‣ Why we love it: Throughout the year, Pokémon GO made a flurry of innovative adjustments enabling players to continue exploring its wild world – even if they couldn’t venture out to do it.
Making a difference: ShareTheMeal
‣ Why we love it: ShareTheMeal was an incredibly easy way to help the hundreds of millions of people around the world facing food insecurity.
Practising self-care: Shine
‣ Why we love it: The meditation app kept inclusivity and representation at the centre of mental and emotional health.