Apple's App Store Awards 2025 reveal AI integration across top apps of the year

AI finds its way into Apple's top apps of the year | TechCrunch

Apple on Thursday shared its annual list of App Store Award winners, continuing its tradition of celebrating the best apps and games of the past year. For 2025, the winning iPhone app was visual planner Tiimo, and the iPhone game of the year was the card game Pokémon TCG Pocket. Although Apple has continued to avoid naming a dedicated AI app or AI chatbot as its app of the year, AI was showcased among this year's winners. Apple's app of the year, Tiimo, for instance, is described as a visual AI planner that turns to-dos into plans with visual timelines. The app uses AI to break down your tasks into a realistic schedule by estimating how long each step of a task could take and helping you to create a plan. Meanwhile, the iPad app of the year, Detail, simplifies video editing with an "Auto Edit" AI feature that handles things like silence removal, zoom cuts, and adding titles and captions. A Cultural Impact winner, StoryGraph, uses a machine learning AI to make book recommendations based on your reading data, while another, Be My Eyes, offers an AI assistant that provides visual descriptions of real-world images for blind and low-vision users. And the Apple Watch app of the year, Strava, includes an AI assistant that turns workout data into insights. The company also announced winners for the iPad, Mac, Vision Pro, Apple Watch, Apple TV, and a standout within its own game subscription service, Apple Arcade. Plus, Apple gave a handful of apps a "Cultural Impact" award. These apps, the company said, offered helpful tools, promoted understanding, or shaped a more inclusive world. Apple first named 45 apps and games as finalists for its awards in November, and the list has now been narrowed down to 17 apps and games. The winners include:

Apple Crowns Its Top Apps of 2025, and AI Dominates the Field

Alex Valdes from Bellevue, Washington has been pumping content into the Internet river for quite a while, including stints at MSNBC.com, MSN, Bing, MoneyTalksNews, Tipico and more. He admits to being somewhat fascinated by the Cambridge coffee webcam back in the Roaring '90s. Apple named the 17 winners of its 2025 App Store Awards on Thursday, and AI made its presence felt. App of the Year Tiimo, created for folks with ADHD, is an AI visual planner; iPad App of the Year Detail uses AI to simplify video editing; and Mac App of the Year Essayist employs AI to ease "the time-consuming work of formatting academic papers." Apple began giving out App Store Awards over a decade ago, with recent App of the Year winners including Kino (2024), AllTrails (2023), BeReal (2022), Toca Life World (2021) and Wakeout! (2020). Don't miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source. It's apparent from this year's selections that the AI juggernaut will continue growing in global influence. The Business of Apps, a B2B media and information platform, estimates that the AI app sector generated $4.5 billion in 2024 -- more than half of that via ChatGPT -- and that nearly 700 million people used AI apps in the first half of 2025. The website predicts that the AI app sector will exceed $150 billion in revenue by 2030. (Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET's parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.) "Every year, we're inspired by the ways developers turn their best ideas into innovative experiences that enrich people's lives," said Tim Cook, Apple's CEO. "This year's winners represent the creativity and excellence that define the App Store, and they demonstrate the meaningful impact that world-class apps and games have on people everywhere." Tiimo is based in Copenhagen and was co-founded by Helene Lassen Nørlem and Melissa Würtz Azari to create planning tools for individuals with Autism, ADHD, neurodivergence and executive functioning differences. The company website says its app's tools "are adaptive by design; visual, flexible, and grounded in how neurodivergent people really plan, think, and follow through," and notes that the app is "for brains that work differently." The app originated as a research project exploring how tech could support neurodivergent teens, but Würtz Azari transformed that into a business after being diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia, according to the company. Tiimo's App of the Year honor comes a year after the app was named a finalist in the 2024 Apple Design Awards in the inclusivity category. Würtz Azari said Tiimu succeeds because its developers "challenge that status quo" of how apps typically present calendars, to-do lists and focus tools. We "integrate focus timers into tasks, add small celebratory cues, and build subtle improvements that make it easier to stay organized," she said. Anyone who has done a research paper or term paper knows how incredibly annoying and time-consuming it is to do citations. Essayist, the Mac App of the Year, utilizes AI to "insert citations seamlessly," for APA, MLA, Chicago/Turabian and Harvard citation styles. The app also eases the processes of adding references and formatting papers. The Detail app, which Apple named iPad App of the Year, says its app can "turn podcasts, reactions and presentations into ready to share content in seconds." Detail says its Auto Edit feature can perform "silence removal, zoom cuts, titles, captions, music and more." Detail also says that its Podcast Auto Edit tool can "generate multiple long-form edits and short clips for social in a tap - --utomatically switch speakers and save hours of editing."

Apple's App Store winners show AI is now just a hidden feature

Apple announced its annual App Store Award winners on Thursday, highlighting top applications and games for the past year. Artificial intelligence features appeared in several winning applications, demonstrating AI's integration into mainstream app development. While Apple did not name a dedicated AI application or chatbot as an overall winner, AI has significantly influenced the functionalities of recognized apps. For instance, Tiimo, which earned iPhone App of the Year, functions as a visual AI planner. It uses AI to convert tasks into visual timelines and to organize activities into a realistic schedule by estimating duration for each step. Detail, the iPad App of the Year, utilizes an "Auto Edit" AI feature to streamline video editing, automating tasks such as silence removal, zoom cuts, and the addition of titles and captions. StoryGraph, a Cultural Impact winner, employs machine learning AI to provide book recommendations based on user reading data. Be My Eyes, another Cultural Impact award recipient, offers an AI assistant that delivers visual descriptions of real-world images for blind and low-vision individuals. Additionally, Strava, the Apple Watch App of the Year, integrates an AI assistant to analyze workout data and generate insights. Apple also recognized winners across other platforms, including Mac, Vision Pro, Apple TV, and its Apple Arcade subscription service. The company presented "Cultural Impact" awards to applications for their utility, promotion of understanding, or contributions to an inclusive world. Apple initially named 45 finalists in November, subsequently narrowing the selection to 17 winning applications and games. The winners include: