In 2021 Apple paid developers $60 billion, out of a total of $260 billion since the App store was born in 2008. The ecosystem is growing very fast. For comparison, all of Hollywood, that is, the entire American film industry, is worth about 95 billion. But this is the total, including the supply chain. Instead, Apple’s payments to developers account for between 70% and 85% of Apple’s total revenue from the App Store alone, which in turn accounts for between 15% and 30% of sales of digital purchases made in apps.
To put it another way: Apple’s app market alone is worth more than the largest film industry in the world and, given the number of people working in the sector (440,000 in Hollywood, 34 million developers registered on the platform of Apple), it also creates many more jobs. And there are more than half a billion users in 175 different countries.
That’s why the annual App Store awards and accolades are not a secondary event or a small celebration among insiders. It is actually a recognition that very clearly indicates Apple’s policy, what it considers innovative and worthy in its ecosystem, which if it is not the largest is still the richest in the world, and also defines priorities. It is a very powerful digital geopolitical tool, the soft power of the code.
As evidenced by the new award category introduced this year: the winners of the ‘cultural impact’ award. Five apps that impacted life and influenced the development of culture. This year’s winners, according to Apple, “encourage users to engage more deeply with their emotions, connect authentically with others, and pay homage to their heritage and the generations that have gone before them, while imagining how to create a world better today”.
The five winners of the Cultural Impact Award are Dot’s Home (a journey through time to discover the history of African American communities and the injustices perpetrated against them), Locket Widget (an ingenious app that allows you to send photos and images directly to a widget on the screen of friends and relatives’ iPhones without the pressure of social media), Waterllama (an app to remind you to drink water and reduce other harmful drinks with a playful style based on the drawings of a Llama) and Inua (a very cinematic game that lets you discover Inuit history and folklore).
But there are not only these categories. The Oscars of Apple’s apps and video games touch sixteen titles. They are the best of this year even if, in some cases, they are apps that have been around for some time or have even won in the past. They too can be read as a statement of principle, given that the awards are assigned at the sole discretion of the App Store editorial team.
Tim Cook himself observes that “This year’s App Store Award winners reinvented our experiences with apps that were able to offer fresh, meaningful and genuine perspectives. Whether they are self-taught independent creators or international teams, these developers have a significant impact and represent the ways apps and games impact our communities and our lives.”
The iPhone App of the year is BeReal, the not-too-social social network, which comes at the right time given the ongoing implosion of Twitter led by Elon Musk and Meta’s now endemic problems with Facebook and Instagram. The iPad app of the year is GoodNotes 5, which is one of the first and according to many also the best note-taking and writing app on the iPad (but which now competes with Apple’s own Freeform, which has just been released). The Mac app of the year is a classic of American culture but one that has much less appeal here: it’s MacFamilyTree 10, the best app for recreating your family’s family tree. Not to find traces of lost nobility, as we might imagine in Italy, but to understand from which countries the ancestors of an American citizen emigrated (or were forced to emigrate).
The Apple TV app of the year (yes, Apple’s media player has an ecosystem of apps that are finally starting to take off, also given the renewed power of the latest generation of Apple TV 4K) is ViX, an app available only in the American store showing Spanish-language independent programs for the promotion of Latin American culture.
Finally, the winner in the category of the best Apple Watch app of the year is Gentler Streak Workout Tracker, a wrist-based app to balance physical activity and rest and to maintain a healthier lifestyle.
Mirroring the world of traditional apps is the ecosystem of games, which play a particular role on the Apple platform. Apple has never been loved by hardcore gamers, who historically preferred consoles or PCs, but now it has acquired a very strong traction in the casual gamer market and the majority of the most downloaded (and paid for) apps are entertainment games. But there are not only tower defense and angry birds and fruit ninka in the world of games from Apple.
The best game of the year for iPhone is Apex Legends Mobile, by Electronic Arts: a “triple A” title is a battle royal shooter of high quality and impressive effects. For iPad, which offers a larger playing surface, the winner is Moncage, which is one of those strange games that are also suitable for adults in which you have to solve puzzles based on perspective. On Mac, and it’s a disappointment given that there are much more valid titles, this year’s winner is Inscryption, an expensive psychological horror based on a simple game mechanic. For Apple TV, however, there is the good surprise of El Hijo by HandyGames, which is a spaghetti western with ubiquitous “drawn” graphics and starring a six-year-old boy who has to overcome obstacles by hiding: a happy reinterpretation of the Stealth games that Hideo Kojima has made it an art form with Metal Gear.
Apple also has its own space for games available by subscription and present on all its platforms: Apple Arcade. In this category, the winner was Wylde Flowers, an entertaining farm life simulator in which you have to lend a hand to your now elderly granny to grow various vegetables on a farm on an island. Finally, because it is now a category in its own right, the game of the year for China (not present in the Italian store) is League of Legends Esports Manager of the giant Tencent. A fantasy football to the nth degree that allows you to simulate dozens of sports.
A curiosity is that, although the product of the stores, i.e. the apps, are completely intangible, the App Store Award is a “physical” prize: the object is actually delivered to the winners and is essentially the App Store logo set in aluminum 100% recycled material used to make Apple products, with the winner’s name engraved on the reverse side. Make no mistake, though, as the recipients of this postmodern paperweight have far more influence on our culture than the recipients of the 10-pound 24-karat gold-plated bronze statuette of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
