Apple has announced the winners of its coveted 2026 Design Awards, handing prizes to 12 apps and games across six categories. The pick of the bunch is grug, an app that dispenses daily wisdom in the form of neolithic grunts. It’s exactly as ridiculous as it sounds, and it proves you don’t need a crack team of devs and a huge budget to make something that catches Apple’s eye.
We run our own TapSmart App Awards each year, and tend to champion apps that fly under Apple’s radar – as proven by the lack of overlap with this year’s winners. We did review a couple of these, though, and game that won the Innovation category was the best thing I played all last year, so it’s good to see it make the list. Sadly it’s only for Mac.
The rest of the winning apps are a real mix of styles and genres, and proof there’s still genuine innovation on the App Store. Here’s the full list of winners.
Delight and Fun
grug by Ocho (Netherlands): An affirmation app that dispenses daily wisdom in the form of neolithic grunts. Exactly as silly as it sounds, and all the better for it.
Is This Seat Taken? by Poti Poti Studio (Spain): A charming logic puzzler about finding everyone a seat on busy public transport. Low stakes, high satisfaction. Read our review.
Inclusivity
Guitar Wiz by Bijoy Thangaraj (India): An all-in-one guitar toolkit with spoken guidance on everything from tuning to finger placement, built around Dynamic Type and other accessibility features.
Pine Hearts by Hyper Luminal Games (UK): A warm-hearted adventure that bakes in accessibility from the ground up, with adjustable text, controls, and motion.
Innovation
NBA: Live Games & Scores by NBA Media Ventures (US): The league’s Vision Pro app lets you watch up to five games at once, with floating stats and a 3D tabletop court.
Blue Prince by Dogubomb (US): The much-lauded puzzle-adventure about a shape-shifting mansion, with enough secrets to fuel a second game inside the first. My personal GOTY!
Interaction
Moonlitt: Moon Phase Tracker by Flipping Hues (Italy): An elegant tracker for lunar events and astrophotography planning, and one of the better early showcases for Liquid Glass.
Sago Mini Jinja’s Garden by Sago Mini (Canada): A gentle Apple Arcade gardening game for younger players, with swipe-to-move controls and no instructions to wade through.
Social Impact
Primary: News in Depth by Wood Metal Rocks (US): A Vision Pro news app with a spatial, editor-curated layout designed to make you slow down and actually read.
Consume Me by Jenny Jiao Hsia and AP Thomson (US): A deeply personal, autobiographical game that handles a difficult subject with real care.
Visuals and Graphics
Tide Guide: Charts & Tables by Condor Digital (US): Hour-by-hour tide and weather forecasts wrapped in custom animations and a sky-matching palette.
Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition by CD Projekt (Poland): The sprawling open-world RPG running on Apple silicon, leaning hard on Metal to make Night City look suitably lived-in.
For Apple’s reasoning behind each pick, plus the full finalist lineup, head to the Apple Design Awards microsite.