Sources: where award winners and top products are listed¶
Checked on 2026-10-01. Award programs change their categories and pages every year: open the link, and note the year and the date you looked in your report.
What each source proves¶
| Source | Who picks | What it proves | What it does not prove |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apple Design Awards | Apple jury | Craft: design, interaction, technical use of Apple platforms | Downloads, revenue, retention |
| App Store Awards | App Store editors | Editors think it's among the year's best on that device | Growth numbers |
| Google Play Best of | Google Play editors | Editors' pick for the year, often per country | Growth numbers; the list differs by country |
| Product Hunt Golden Kitty | Community vote | Community love among Product Hunt users | Retention; audience is tech-heavy |
| Product Hunt leaderboard | Upvotes on launch day | A strong launch and presentation | Anything after launch week |
| Chrome Web Store Featured | Chrome team | Meets Chrome's quality bar | Growth numbers |
Growth signals you can see in public: rating count and average on store pages, category rank, Product Hunt upvotes
and rank, review text. Downloads and revenue are usually not public: write no public data instead of guessing.
Apple¶
- Apple Design Awards: developer.apple.com/design/awards. The 2026 page lists winners and finalists, split into apps and games, in 6 categories: Delight and Fun, Inclusivity, Innovation, Interaction, Social Impact, Visuals and Graphics. Each category has a one-line description (for example, Interaction: intuitive interfaces and controls tailored to the platform). There is no public scoring checklist. Finalists that didn't win make good controls.
- App Store Awards: announced on Apple Newsroom each December. 2025 winners (per device: iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Vision Pro, Apple Watch, Apple TV, Apple Arcade, plus Cultural Impact) · 2025 finalists.
- App of the Day / Editors' Choice: shown in the App Store's Today tab. There is no official archive, so note the date you saw it.
Google¶
- Google Play Best of: announced on the Google blog each year, for apps, games and books. Best of 2025. App categories in 2025 included Best App, Best for Fun, Best for Personal Growth, Best Hidden Gem, Best for Large Screens, Best for Watches and Best for Cars. Winners differ by country: say which country's list you used.
- Chrome Web Store Featured badge: developer.chrome.com/docs/webstore/discovery. The page lists eligibility (a published, public extension with no active policy violations whose core features work without extra credentials) and says there is no checklist that guarantees being featured.
Product Hunt¶
- Golden Kitty Awards: hall of fame, by year and category (for example, Developer Tools and Product of the Year). Winners are chosen by community vote.
- Leaderboard: producthunt.com/leaderboard, by day, week, month and year. Good for studying launch pages: tagline, gallery order, first comment, video.
Cross-list products¶
A product that shows up in more than one list is a stronger reference than one that appears in a single list. Example from the 2025 lists above: Focus Friend was Google Play's Best App of 2025 and an App Store Awards Cultural Impact winner, and Chants of Sennaar was Google Play's Best Indie game and also an App Store Cultural Impact winner.
Pattern galleries (optional, not evidence)¶
Screenshot libraries such as Mobbin or Page Flows show many apps' onboarding and paywall screens side by side. They save time when you tag patterns, but some content is paid, and being in a gallery is not an award or a growth signal.