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The 2026 Apple Design Award Finalists Are Out, and I Already Have Favorites

Every year around WWDC, Apple drops the list of Apple Design Award finalists, and every year I block off an evening to download a bunch of them and poke around.

Wes Brennan··3 min read
Apple Design Award Finalists 2026

Every year around WWDC, Apple drops the list of Apple Design Award finalists, and every year I block off an evening to download a bunch of them and poke around. This year's list just landed, and there's some genuinely weird, beautiful stuff on it. Let me walk you through what stood out.

Apple announced more than 30 finalists across six categories, with three apps and three games competing in each. A few apps showed up in more than one category, so the total count is just under 36. Winners get announced in the weeks leading up to WWDC 2026.

Here's the full list, and the ones I'm planning to try first.

Delight and Fun

Personally, I'm most curious about Is This Seat Taken? The title alone is doing a lot of work. PowerWash Simulator being on this list also makes me smile, because if you've never watched a filthy gas station slowly become clean in 4K, you're missing out on a very specific kind of calm.

Inclusivity

Structured is the one I've actually used. It's a daily planner that lays your day out on a vertical timeline, and it's been my go to scheduling app for a while now. Hearing Buddy looks fascinating too. Live captions on iPhone is the kind of feature that just quietly changes lives for the people who need it.

Innovation

The NBA app being a finalist for Innovation caught me off guard, in a good way. The official league apps for any sport are usually a mess. Seeing one of them recognized for actual interaction design makes me hopeful that the rest of them will catch up eventually.

Interaction

Moonlitt and Tide Guide are exactly my kind of utility. I love a single purpose app that does one beautiful, focused thing. Grand Mountain Adventure 2 is also one of those games I'll happily disappear into for a weekend if I'm not careful.

Social Impact

Harvee is a stress monitor that pulls from your Apple Watch data, which feels like the right use of the sensors on your wrist. And Katha Room making bedtime audio stories for kids is the kind of small, specific app I always end up rooting for.

Visuals and Graphics

(Not Boring) Camera is on my home screen already, and honestly I'd be a little surprised if it didn't win. The whole (Not Boring) suite has been pushing what app design can feel like for years. And Cyberpunk 2077 running well enough on Apple silicon to be a Visuals finalist is a wild sentence to type.

What I'm doing tonight

I'm going to download Is This Seat Taken?, Moonlitt, and Hearing Buddy and spend an hour with each. If you've been meaning to clean up your home screen anyway, the Design Award finalists list is honestly one of the better starting points. Apple has done the curation for you. All you have to do is tap.

If one of these turns out to be your new favorite, let me know which one. I love hearing what catches people from a list like this.

My Favorite iPhone Accessories:


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