Apple's 2011 Design Award Winners Announced, Are Mostly Well-Deserving

As part of its WWDC tradition, Apple announced its annual Design Awards winners Tuesday night at the San Francisco event. From Apple's own website, the 12 honorees were chosen for demonstrating

outstanding achievement and excellence in iPhone, iPad, and Mac app design. Each year, winning products set new standards for the developer community to follow.

Each so-decorated app falls into one of four categories: Student (for, not by), iPhone, iPad, and Mac. To be eligible, all apps had to be available in their requisite App Stores. Student:

• Grades 2
• Pennant
• Pulse News Reader

iPhone:

• Cut the Rope
• Golfscape GPS Rangefinder
• Infinity Blade

iPad:

• Osmos for iPad
• Al Gore's Our Choice
• djay

Mac:

• Capo
• Pixelmator
• Anomaly Warzone Earth

While a few of the apps, based on rating, seem out of place here (Golfscape GPS Rangefinder and Grades 2 have nearly the same number of one-star as five-star reviews), most were widely heralded and seem worthy enough. (Before you ask, Infinity Blade's iPhone version won out over its big brother due to Retina-enhanced visuals and better processor support over the first-gen iPad.) Personally, I'm glad to see Pixelmator take home a prize, because it's going to be my first purchase once I get my new iMac. No more Seashore for my leading images, folks!

Mentioned apps