Apple has officially revealed the recipients of the 2024 App Store Awards, celebrating applications and games that have “inspired users to tap into their creativity, achieve new milestones, and treasure moments with family and friends.”
I had the opportunity to engage with three of this year’s honorees and inquire about how they developed their award-winning apps for Apple.
Creating an Apple Award-Winning App in 2024
Kino by Lux Optics
Kino by Lux Optics has been awarded the title of iPhone App of the Year for 2024. This filmmaking application is produced by the same team that created Halide, co-founded by Sebastiaan de With and Ben Sandofsky. Kino was designed under the principle of creating “an app for filmmakers, not just for filmmaking enthusiasts.”
“With Kino, we aimed to take a different approach than our earlier apps — focusing on creating something accessible to those without extensive filmmaking knowledge,” Ben shared. “Our goal with Kino was to allow anyone to simply hit record and achieve stunning results.”
Ben also shared another guiding principle that he and Sebastiaan had during the app’s development:
“We developed Kino in part because we have young kids at home. As a parent, you get only a brief moment to grab your phone and record before that special moment is gone. That was a core aspect of our development process — to create an app that lets you quickly and easily capture cinematic moments, similar to how previous generations shot on 16mm film.”
“Creating a camera app allows us to gain insights into how our users see the world. We’ve encountered submissions from places like Kazakhstan, Antarctica, and Iceland, which is incredibly inspiring,” added Sebastiaan.
Ben and Sebastiaan expressed their gratitude for Apple’s support as indie developers, noting the potential financial benefits for Apple to partner with larger corporations.
“Apple’s support for small indie apps like ours is remarkable, given we operate on a much smaller scale than multi-billion dollar entities. They could easily profit more by aligning with bigger companies,” Sandofsky explained. “Instead, they’ve been very generous, providing assistance and guidance on maximizing performance, along with their time.”
You can explore Kino on the App Store today.
Adobe Lightroom
This year’s Mac App of the Year distinction was awarded to Adobe Lightroom. I was particularly interested in exploring how Adobe’s dedication to the Mac platform has evolved and the significance of Lightroom being recognized as Mac App of the Year nearly 20 years after its initial launch.
“Apple is an extremely important partner to Adobe. A sizable portion of our users are on this platform, and we strive to represent ourselves well there,” explained Stephen Baloglu, Adobe’s director of product marketing.
“The exceptional nature of our partnership lies in Apple’s relentless drive to push boundaries with phone lenses and accelerating technologies on the Mac. We build on that momentum,” Baloglu told me. “Together, we can create an outstanding experience for our users.”
Katrin Eismann, product manager for Adobe Lightroom learning and inspiration, added:
“Having worked with Apple products for over three decades, I admire their commitment to quality and user-friendliness. For instance, their HDR displays enabled us to further develop HDR imaging capabilities. Viewing images in HDR on a phone display is pivotal; without a display, HDR loses its significance. It’s a truly fruitful collaboration.”
You can download Adobe Lightroom for Mac today.
Moises
Moises has been designated this year’s iPad App of the Year, focusing on empowering musicians with more control over their music productions. The app utilizes AI technology to isolate vocals and instruments from any track, detect chords, modify pitch, create a metronome, and more.
One particularly intriguing story shared by the team behind Moises was about Elo Casagrande, the drummer of Slipknot, and how he utilizes the app. Co-founder and COO Eddie Hsu recounted:
“Elo Casagrande was named the best metal drummer for 2024, and we once met him in the studio. He mentioned, ‘The reason I’m with Slipknot now is because of you guys.’ He shared that one of his YouTube videos where he performed a Slipknot cover caught the band’s attention, leading to his audition. Elo put all 32 songs he had to rehearse into Moises to isolate the drum parts and practice at his own pace.”
During our discussion, the Moises team discussed how the app’s initial version was developed for iPhone. With the support of Apple and the provided developer tools, they were able to unveil the iPad version smoothly:
“We’ve built a solid relationship with the Apple team, and they’ve offered valuable feedback throughout our development journey, not just on features but enhancing the overall user experience,” shared Geraldo Ramos, co-founder and CEO of Moises.
Jardson Almeida, co-founder and chief experience officer, added:
“We also took part in Apple workshops to better understand their human interface guidelines, which allowed us to make the app more native and user-friendly on iPad.”
“Apple collaborates closely with us, even assisting us in design elements and user experience improvements. This partnership has been very interactive,” Hsu concluded.
You can download Moises on the App Store today.
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