About half way through Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco this week, Apple announced the winners of its Apple Design Award, which recognizes technical excellence, innovation, and outstanding achievement in iPhone and Mac software development.
Awards in the iPhone Developer Showcase category went to apps from MLB.com, Rogue Sheep, ngmoco:) and atebits. The award for the Best iPhone Student App went to Elias Pietil and the award for Best iPhone OS 3.0 Beta App went to AccuTerra.
Here’s a roundup of the winning apps and developers, as described by Apple’s judges. Some links will take you to the app’s review on AppCraver.
iPhone Developer Showcase
MLB.com At Bat 2009 v1.0.1 -- Listen live to every regular and postseason game without blackout restrictions, see real-time scores, play highlights, and stream audio of all games At Bat 2009 uses MediaPlayer for in-game video highlights, AudioToolbox for streaming audio, QuartzCore, CoreGraphics, UIKit, and Core Animation to optimize the user experience, SQLite for data caching and tracking video view history, and SystemConfiguration for reach-ability.
Postage v1.0 -- Create and send personalized digital postcards using the built-in camera and Photo Library. Core Animation provides smooth transitions and eye-catching effects while Quartz provides high quality graphics, effects, and text display. With 3G/Edge/Wi-Fi networking, you have connectivity virtually everywhere. And you can easily select recipients of your Postage postcards with Address Book integration.
Topple 2 v1.1 -- Topple 2 combines the features of multitouch and the accelerometer to create a game about stacking blocks and keeping them from toppling over. Local WiFi multiplayer mode enables game play between two players, and a challenge mode where recorded sessions can be sent to others players via email, Twitter or Facebook.
Tweetie v1.3.1 -- Tweetie has become “the de-facto way to use Twitter on iPhone,” Apple says. With its simple interface that leverages UI standards, and its blend of power features, Tweetie is an app that provides a great experience for every level of user, the company adds.
Best iPhone Student App
Wooden Labyrinth 3D v1.2.1 – OpenGL ES is harnessed to create a realistic labyrinth board game that alters the playing field’s perspective according to the tilt of the iPhone, making the board seem to pop off the screen. The iPhone networking capabilities are used to connect to a level editor and to download user-created levels.
Best iPhone OS 3.0 Beta App
AccuTerra v1.0.0 Beta (not yet available in the App Store) -- AccuTerra uses many iPhone OS 3.0 beta technologies including StoreKit for In-app purchase of maps; push notification for notifying friends of new hikes; OpenGL ES and MapKit to render high fidelity maps; audio toolbox for custom sounds, clicks, vibrations and chime; CoreLocation for GPS functionality enabling users to record their adventures; UIKit, Core Animation, and SQlite3.0 to store hikes, places and points, photos, and other user-generated data.
