Just a couple of days after Apple announced the best apps of 2022 in its annual App Store Awards, Google Play has now shared its own “best of” list. The company published a list of winners across categories, including those selected by its own editorial team and by Android owners through the User’s Choice awards. Google this year anointed the viral AI-generated art app, Dream by WOMBO, as this year’s Best App in the U.S., while users picked BeReal as their favorite.
BeReal also won Apple’s “App of the Year” award, signaling a younger generation’s preference for new forms of social networking.
Meanwhile, Apex Legends Mobile was both Google’s choice for Best Game as well as the User’s Choice winner. The company noted the game had regularly trended throughout the year and often appeared in the top 10 downloaded lists.
Overall, Google selected winners across 20 categories in the U.S. Google Play Store, in addition to regional awards in non-U.S. markets.
This year, the company also introduced new categories, including “Best Game Story” and “Best Ongoing Game” in an effort to better highlight the unique types of games its developers brought to the ecosystem, it said. Plus, Google picked the best apps for fun, for personal growth and the best everyday essentials and hidden gems.
Google said its choices are meant to reflect what mattered most to people in 2022, which included ways to escape reality through gaming as well as ways to help us stay grounded and present.
Beyond category picks, Google also selected specific winners for platforms beyond the smartphone, highlighting its recent push to make Google Play a place to easily find a variety of different types of apps.
Recently, Google revamped the Play Store to better direct people to apps for their watches, tablets and TVs — a change that was partly reflected in its year-end winners’ list where Google dubbed Todoist its Best App for Android Wear, Pocket the best for tablets and BandLab the best for Chromebook users.
It also picked the best games for tablets with Tower of Fantasy and for Chromebook, with Roblox.
The full list of winners is below.
Best overall app and game
Users’ choice
Best apps of 2022
Best games of 2022
Elsewhere on Google Play, the company highlighted the best-selling books and audiobooks.
Users can find their country’s winners for all the “best of” lists in the new Best of 2022 section of the Play Store.
Source @TechCrunch
