Over one thousand votes, dozens of nominations and more than fifty finalist apps make up the 2009 MacTalk App Awards. Now, as 2010 makes it's start, here are the winners!
MacTalkers, you have chosen wisely! The first annual MacTalk App Awards have brought seven winning apps in eleven categories - and the biggest of those is Bjango's Consume, taking home one gold award, two silver awards and earning two honourable mentions. Apple's Remote app also won big, with the awards for Most Underrated App & Best Apple App, both with a large margin. It's been a great year for our local developers too - aside from Consume, Pocket Weather (shiftyjelly) and Flight Control (Firemint) have both won awards this year. Read on to see the full list of winners, second place-getters and honourable mentions (awarded to apps in third place).
Gold Awards
Best App
Winner: Tweetie 2 (32%)
From our review: "...the best Twitter client out there.*If you’re a serious Twitter user with an iPhone and you’ve held off before, I can reassure you now – it’s time to get Tweetie 2."
Second place: Pocket Weather (19%)
Honourable mention: Consume (17%)
Best Designed App
Winner: Consume (29%)
From our review: "It sports a much simpler, cleaner and far more aesthetically pleasing user interface than all of the others put together."
Second place: Tweetie 2 (25%)
Honourable mention: Tie between Pocket Weather & Convertbot (15%)
Best Australian App
Winner: Pocket Weather (38%)
Another home grown app, Pocket Weather is the weather app that the iPhone needed. Packed full of stats and figures from our own Bureau of Meteorology, Pocket Weather has definitely earned it's place as Best Australian App of 2009.
Second place: Flight Control (34%)
Honourable mention: Consume (28%)
Silver Awards
Best Game
Winner: Flight Control (51%)
Flight Control (from Australian developer Firemint) has spent months in the top ten charts of the highly competitive App Store. It's super simple gameplay and frequent updates with new scenes, new challenges and even a Bluetooth multiplayer mode make it a worthy winner of the Best Game award.
Second place: Peggle (14%)
Honourable mention: Tie between Canabalt & Words With Friends (12%)
Best App Icon
Winner: Consume (31%)
From our review: "...combined with ease-of-use and a gorgeous UI make Consume a brilliant usage monitoring app for your iPhone, and one that I would recommend to anyone looking for a strong monitor for the iPhone."
Second place: Barista (15%)
Honourable mention: Ramp Champ (12%)
Most Useful App
Winner: Consume (42%)
From our review: "What makes Consume most unique is the way that it delivers carrier information. Using ‘Recipes’, it essentially means that if a carrier changes the way it transfers usage data (which it inevitably will every so often), Consume can fix it without submitting an update..."
Second place: Pocket Weather (21%)
Honourable mention: Facebook (8%)
Most Underrated App
Winner: Remote (71%)
Apple's Remote has never been fully recognised as a truly stunning app. Despite it's initial 2008 release date, Remote owners have benefitted from countless updates with new versions of iTunes - among those this year, an update bringing Apple TV owners a wi-fi remote of it's own.
Second place: Reeder (14%)
Honourable mention: ECB Cricket (9%)
Bronze Awards
Best Christmas/Holiday App
Winner: Doodle Jump (Winter Holiday special edition) (55%)
From our review: "...the developers should be rewarded on creating an exciting and entertaining take on the classic platform jumping game style."
Second place: Minigore (Christmas edition) (33%)
Honourable mention: Boxcar (Christmas sounds) (12%)
Best Apple App
Winner: Remote (75%)
Winning our award dedicated specially to the best apps to come out of Infinite Loop, Cupertino is Apple's Remote app. As mentioned above, it doesn't get spotlighted often on 'best of' lists, but it's actually a very clean and powerful addition. A must-install for all iPhone and iPod touch owners.
Second place: MobileMe iDisk (12%)
Honourable mention: Texas Hold'Em (10%)
Best Rejected App
Winner: Delicious Library (50%)
There are hundreds of apps that haven't been allowed into the goldmine that's formally known as the App Store, and quite a few of them should be recognised as great apps anyway - like Delicious Library, which was rejected into oblivion by Apple after the developers had some legal troubles with Amazon. Meanwhile, the desktop version of the popular media library tagging app was the recipient of an Apple Design Award last year.
Second place: I Am Rich (36%)
Honourable mention: Obama Trampoline (10%)
The Worst App Award
Winner: Most of the App Store (27%)
It's not a fantastic note to end on, but "most of the App Store" has won this year's award for Worst App. With Apple accepting hundreds of 'bikini babe' apps, fart apps, and countless other useless apps in general, it's no surprise that this nomination has made it's way right to the top. Apple, we hope you're reading.
Second place: Drunk Sniper (26%)
Dishonourable mention: Qantas (20%)
Thank-you all for nominating and voting for your favourites in the 2009 MacTalk App Awards. Winning apps' developers will be notified of their awards, and please feel free to contact me on the forums or on Twitter if you'd like to request a full breakdown of a particular category's results. 2010 is already shaping up to be another great year for the iPhone, and apps are going to be a huge part of that success. Happy New Year!
The 2009 MacTalk App Awards - Winners!