This article is from WeChat official account:APPSO (ID: appsolution), author: Fang Jiawen, title figure from: vision China

It is reasonable, unexpected.

This is how I feel after seeing the list of selected winners of the Apple App Store 2020.

The “reasonable” is that the theme of this year’s selection cannot avoid the changes in people’s lives under the epidemic, and selected those applications that will help us better through this unusual 2020:

Compared with previous years, we have many of the most creative and connected moments this year, all of which happened on the app.

We have seen the unremitting efforts of many developers around the world, and the 2020 selected winners are just a few outstanding examples of this innovative spirit. They keep us healthy, do things well, get enough rest, and have fun, and have a significant impact on many of us.

Said Phil Schiller, the current Apple Fellow.

The “unexpected” lies in the imagination or forward-looking displayed by some award-winning apps, bringing new “opening methods” to our daily lives. Before we start the introduction, let’s present this year’s list of winners:

  • Annual iPhone App: “Wakeout!” (Andres Canella, United States)

  • Annual iPhone Game: “Yuan Shen” (Miha Tour, China)

  • Annual Apple Watch app: Endel(Endel, Germany)

  • Mac App of the Year: Fantastical(Flexibits, U.S.)

Annual iPhone App: “Wakeout!”

For people who don’t exercise, starting exercise is a stressful thing-you have to spare a period of time, prepare equipment and space, and warm up to avoid injury… It says I want it all Going to give up, especially when working at home, the sofa around is always too tempting.

But what if “paralyzed couch” 30 seconds is also a sport?

“Wakeout!”, which won the “iPhone App of the Year” this year, is a very interesting sports application designed to encourage users to move happily. Even “paralyzed sofas” can become one of the sports.

In “Wakeout!”, unexpected places such as the bed, kitchen, sofa, etc. can all become your exercise space.

Moreover, even in relatively “normal” sports scenes such as offices and outdoors, the sports design of “Wakeout!” is definitely not an unusual way.

In addition to the special sports scene, the developer also spent a lot of thought on the design of the instructional video.

First of all, the background of the video shooting are real kitchens, sofas, and park scenes, rather than a cookie-cutter recording studio; and the person demonstrating the action is not a fitness trainer with a standard smile in the usual fitness video, but like Amateurs in casual clothes/pajamas like you and me enjoy the happiness brought by the slightly “secondary” exercise.

The founders of the app, Pedro Wunderlich and Andres Canella, told us that they hope to encourage people to move through short and fun exercises, “just like playing games when they were young.”

Our secret is a sense of humor and some fun and easy to domovement.

Isn’t this exactly what we all need in 2020?

iPhone Game of the Year: “The Original God”

The iPhone game of the year won this year is one of the most discussed games this year, “Yuan Shen”. It is worth pointing out that this is also the first time a domestic developer has won the App Store annual selection award.

“The Original God” is an open world adventure game developed by domestic game developer Mihayou. Liu Wei, co-founder of Mihayou, told us that when the company set up this project three years ago, it hoped to bring open world games that can only be experienced on consoles to mobile phones, bringing players a new kind of Experience.

The large-scale fantasy world shaped by “Original God” is lifelike, bringing users the unconstrained experience they yearn for.

Apple commented in this press release. When the epidemic has to reduce going out, another kind of “free exploration” brought by the game also brought some comfort to many people.

According to the introduction, in order to create an excellent experience for the game, Mihayou has set up a special music studio, animation production team, IP team and even peripheral manufacturing factories for “Yuan Shen”.

Among them, the music of “The Original God” was created in cooperation with the famous symphony orchestra. For example, the OSTs in the Riyue and Mond areas in the game were created in collaboration with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra and the London Symphony Orchestra, respectively, and were well received.

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According to App Annie statistics, one week after the launch of “Yuan Shen”, global mobile downloads have exceeded 23 million. The October data collected by Sensor Tower pointed out that the global revenue of “Original God” is as high as 245 million US dollars, which is higher than the second and third place “Glory of the King” and “Peace Elite”.

Apple Watch App of the Year: “Endel”

When you work or relax, you need to be accompanied by BGM to get into the state faster? “Endel” said: Let me write a song for you right away.

“Endel” is a customized soundscape application, it provides four modes of “relaxation”, “focus”, “action” and “sleep”, based on the user’s personal physical signs and location Information such as environment and time zone, using algorithms to generate ambient music in real time to help users better enter a specific state.

▲Visual presentation in different modes, the leftmost is the limited-time soundscape “AI Lullaby”

In fact, there have been many studies and applications about the influence of music on people’s emotional and mental states.

High-end hotels and restaurants will use classical music to motivate consumers to make higher spending; and some football teams will also play specially designed background music to improve the athlete’s state during training.

Nowadays, with the development of technology and the increase in computing power of electronic equipmentThis kind of “tailor-made” music design service has also begun to enter consumers’ lives. “Endel” is a good example.

At the same time, “Endel” also makes full use of Apple’s complete ecology.

For example, when a user wears an Apple Watch, “Endel” can obtain the user’s heart rate and other information from the watch, better design a customized soundscape, and present it in an iPhone or Mac app.

Moreover, if you want to go out for a walk and rest without holding your mobile phone, you can also directly use the independent “Endel” app on Apple Watch to download a specific situation mode, enjoy the customized soundscape generated by AI in real time, and get “True Walking BGM “.

Recently, “Endel” also cooperated with singer Grimes, based on Grimes’s vocals and original music, combined with algorithms, launched a limited edition soundscape “AI Lullaby”.

In an interview, Grimes said that he originally wanted to do this project mainly for his son X Æ A-XII Musk(her and Musk’s son) Look for better hypnotic white noise.

If you want to experience X Æ A-XII” the same paragraph (but not the same)” AI lullaby, then you have to download “Endel” before November 23 to experience it.

Mac App of the Year: “Fantastical”

“Fantastical” is one of the oldest calendar applications in the Apple ecosystem.

Although it has very rich functions, The biggest charm of “Fantastical” comes from its “humanized” functional design.

Generally speaking, if we want to create an event on the calendar application, we need to fill in relevant information item by item according to the content, time, location, etc. of the event, which is less efficient, while the natural semantic recognition function of “Fantastical” allows creation of events More humane.

If you enter “have dinner with Alice next Monday at 8”, the app will automatically recognize the item “have dinner with Alice” and the time “next Monday at 8” and automatically generate a new item.

Although the natural semantics of “Fantastical” currently only supports English, French, German, Italian, Japanese and Spanish, Flexibits CEO Michael Simmons told us that they are currently working hard to prepare the Chinese version of the relevant adaptation functions!

This year, the 3.0 version of this app, which has been born for nearly ten years, brings many of the same thoughtful features.

For example, set alternate times for meetings. If there is a meeting time that has not yet been determined, the user can set multiple alternative times for a single event on the calendar, and can choose to copy it to the participants. When the time is determined, the application will also synchronize relevant information to the participants, and automatically delete other events set at alternate times.

In addition, in order to reduce repetitive work, the application has added a “template” function. For frequently used but irregular activity arrangements, users can directly create a template, and only need to directly click on the template when needed and edit the time and other information.

In response to the demand for online meetings that have broken out due to the epidemic, “Fantastical” has also added a “one-click join meeting” function for online meetings.

When you want to participate in a video conference, we generally record the URL of the video conference on the calendar so that you can open the event to copy the conference.

As an optimization, “Fantastical” adds a “join” button to video conference events, which can join the meeting with one click, eliminating the trouble of users copying related links and opening them in the browser.

Although Apple’s native calendar application is sufficient for most people, “Fantastical” also shows the productivity and possibilities that a mature and comprehensive calendar + task management application can bring.


One ​​More Thing

Due to the special circumstances in 2020, this year’s App Store annual selection event has naturally moved to be held online, and we can only interview and communicate with the winners through the video conferencing application.

It is also in the year of all these “online” and “virtualization”, Apple created for the first time the winners a physical App Store 2020 selection medal.

The design of the medal is inspired by the iconic blue icon of the App Store. It was created by Apple’s industrial design team. The name of the award-winning app is engraved on the back. The raw material is 100% recycled aluminum. In addition, the winners also received a congratulatory letter signed by Apple CEO Tim Cook. This is really a memorial that feels cold but full of warmth.

▲The Mihayou team shared photos of their medals with us

At the same time, this is also like a reminder: Although we still need to maintain social distancing, we can always find a way to stay in touch and convey goodwill. Whether it’s physical medals or outstanding applications, they are bridges that help us keep in touch.

This article is from WeChat official account:APPSO (ID: appsolution), author: Fang Jiawen