Great apps provide intuitive new ways for people to learn, create, and accomplish. The App of the Year winners set the bar for them all. We celebrate this year’s selects — and the developers behind them — for their innovation and exceptional design.

• Spectre Camera

  Lux Optics LLC

  • • iPhone App of the Year

• Flow by Moleskine

  Moleskine Srl

  • • iPad App of the Year

• Affinity Publisher

  Serif Labs

  • • Mac App of the Year

• The Explorers

  The Explorers Network

  • • Apple TV App of the Year

Of the many, many games we played this year, these took our breath away. With inspirational storytelling, delightful design, and innovative use of the latest Apple technologies, they did more than challenge players — they delivered exceptional, compelling experiences.

• Sky: Children of the Light

  thatgamecompany

  • • iPhone Game of the Year

• 光·遇

  Hangzhou NetEase Leihuo Technology Co., Ltd.

  • • iPhone Game of the Year

• Hyper Light Drifter

  Abylight S.L.

  • • iPad Game of the Year

• GRIS

  Devolver

  • • Mac Game of the Year

• Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap

  DotEmu

  • • Apple TV Game of the Year

In a collection of groundbreaking games, this one stood out to become the first Apple Arcade Game of the Year. The incredible visuals, marvelous music, and brilliant gameplay make it a must-play experience.

All the best apps for iPhone, iPad and Mac were announced on the recent Apple event. It was held on Dec 2, 2020, in New York, where they highlighted the best apps and games of the year, available on App Store. It is the first time that an event was exclusively organized to lay focus on the best apps and games by Apple. The Mac App Store makes it easy to find just the right app for you. Click the Discover tab to find in-depth stories about the best Mac apps. Or click Create to find inspiring apps to help you with filmmaking, photo editing, or graphic design.

• Sayonara Wild Hearts

  Annapurna Interactive

These apps and games for iPhone and iPad were part of two cultural phenomenons that helped define 2019.

Blockbusters Reborn

Simultaneously nostalgic and new, these world-famous franchises were boldly reimagined.

• Alien: Blackout

  D3PA

• Assassin's Creed Rebellion

  Ubisoft

• Call of Duty®: Mobile

  Activision Publishing, Inc.

• Call of Duty: Mobile - Garena

  Garena Mobile Private

• 콜 오브 듀티: 모바일

  Tencent Games

• 跑跑卡丁车官方竞速版

  Tencent Mobile Games

• Dota Underlords

  Valve

• Dr. Mario World

  Nintendo Co., Ltd.

• 辐射：避难所Online

  Shulong Information Technology (Zhejiang) Co., Ltd.

• 最终幻想：勇气启示录

  Chengdu Seasun Shiyou Technology Co., Ltd

• Gears POP!

  Microsoft Corporation

• Hot Wheels Infinite Loop

  Mattel, Inc.

• Langrisser

  ZlongGames

• 梦幻模拟战

  Shanghai Zishun Information Technology Co., Ltd.

• ラングリッサー モバイル

  ZlongGames

• 랑그릿사

  ZlongGames

• Lineage 2: Revolution

  Netmarble Corporation

• 리니지2M

  NCSOFT

• ドラゴンクエストウォーク

  SQUARE ENIX

• Mario Kart Tour

  Nintendo Co., Ltd.

• Minecraft Earth

  Mojang

• Pokémon Masters

  DeNA Co., Ltd.

• The Elder Scrolls: Blades

  Bethesda

• The King of Fighters ALLSTAR

  Netmarble Corporation

• 三国志·战略版

  Aligames Inc.

• Warhammer: Chaos & Conquest

  Tilting Point

• 轩辕剑龙舞云山

  Hangzhou NetEase Leihuo Technology Co., Ltd.

• 龍舞雲山

  SOFTSTAR Games INC.

The Storyteller Within

In 2019, these apps helped us discover our inner creators — in whatever form they took. With their help, we became podcasters, photographers, designers, videographers, and authors.

• 1 Second Everyday: Video Diary

  1SE

• 24FPS - Video Filter & LUT

  Polarr, Inc.

• Anchor

  Anchor FM Inc.

• Canva: Stories & Video Maker

  Canva

• Filmr - Video Editor & Filter

  Stei App, ltda

• FlipaClip: Cartoon Animation

  Visual Blasters LLC

• 快手

  Beijing Kwai Technology Co., Ltd.

• Lifecake Family & Baby Photos

  Lifecake Ltd

• Magisto Video Editor

  Vimeo, Inc.

• Mojo - Stories Editor

  Archery Inc.

• Nizo

  Image Mechanics

• Noisy Book

  Lumen Digital

• Over: Design/Flyer/Story Maker

  Over, Inc.

• Spark Camera - Video Editor

  Dayworks.

• Steller

  Expedition Travel Advisor, Inc.

• StoryBoost: Story Editor

  Lightricks Ltd.

• Tayasui Sketches

  Tayasui.com

• Typic 2: Fonts & Text on Photo

  Hi Mom S.A.S

• Unfold — Create Stories

  Unfold Creative

• Vostok

  Dmitry Mashkin

• VUE Vlog

  VUE VIDEO CO., LTD.

• VUE - Video Camera and Editor

  VUE VIDEO CO., LTD.

• Wattpad

  Wattpad Corp

• WIDE短视频 - 一键自动Vlog

  Xiamen Meitu Technology Co., Ltd.

App selections vary by region, language, and/or platform.

If you're new to the Macintosh, or even if you've had one for a while, you may be interested in putting the work aside from time to time and playing games on your lovely machine. Macs may not have the same number of games as Windows PCs, but there are still plenty of places to get them if you know where to look. Here are some of my favorites. What are yours?

Steam

Valve's Steam service has been available for the Mac for a while now, and offers a pretty rich combination of indie and commercial titles for the Mac. They have their own Mac OS X section, which makes it very easy for Mac gamers to find what they're looking for.

What's more, Valve puts Mac gamers on a pretty even playing field with their Windows counterparts when it comes to sales and promotions — so you can usually get the same remarkable discounts. This weekend, for example, they're doing a free play weekend for the popular FPS Borderlands 2, with a 50 percent discount available as well.

Mac App Store

I've already said my piece about what I perceive to be the problems with the Mac App Store. But those issues notwithstanding, Apple deserves credit for bringing forth a robust marketplace for Mac app developers. What's more, Mac App Store is baked right in to OS X and uses Apple ID credentials, which means that it instantly has a potential user base of almost half a billion accounts, many more than the total number of Macs in use today.

The Mac App Store features indie and commercial titles alike, and also keeps lists of top paid and top free games, so there's something to appeal to gamers regardless of the budget. You can usually find the latest hot releases for Mac offered here, but sometimes it's a good idea to compare to Steam to see if you're getting the best deal.

MacGameStore

Even before the Mac App Store launched, MacGameStore came on the scene to provide Mac gamers with the latest downloads. In fact, they've been serving up games to Mac customers since 2005.

You can buy games directly from the web site, though there's a handy app that you can use if you prefer. MacGameStore regularly runs specials and deals, and if demos are available you can find links to them there too.

GameAgent.com

Best Games To Get On Mac App Store Updates Not Working

GameAgent.com started out as Mac game publisher Aspyr's way of reaching out to its own customers, but since then it's grown into an active Mac gaming service that offers downloads not just of Aspyr games but of other company's products too. They sport deals, favorites and games under $10, to make it easy to find something you might like.

If you set up an account with GameAgent, you can also use their Mac Match service to find out what games are supported on your system, taking the guesswork out of system requirements. You can also create a wish list, get access to special deals and more.

Feral Interactive

Mac game publisher Feral Interactive is a perennial darling of the Mac App Store, but you can usually find their games through other Mac game services too. If you'd prefer to go direct to the source, Feral is happy to take your money — they run their own Mac game download service, which is exclusive to their games.

Feral follows the 'traditional' model of Mac game publishing — they license top rated games from PC and console game publishers, then produce and publish Mac versions. So if you want the new Tomb Raider game, for example, or XCOM: Enemy Within, you know where to look.

GameTree Mac

TransGaming is a company that mostly stays behind the scenes — they're content to convert games to the Mac using their Cider technology (which has its distant origins in the open-source WINE project) and let the publishers themselves to the heavy lifting. But they also operate their own game sales service, called GameTree Mac.

GameTree Mac has the usual Mac-compatible products from other commercial and indie game publishers, but they also sport the titles that TransGaming has worked on, which often can't be found through other services. So there are some exclusives there that might peak your interest.

GOG.com

GOG.com — what was once branded as 'Good Old Games' — specializes in selling 'vintage' computer software. They do have some more recent releases like Torchlight, for example, but much of their specialty has to do with resurrecting games from the DOS and early Windows era, recycled to run on modern hardware.

They're much better about supporting the Mac than they used to be, and you can usually find games for $6 — $10 without too much of a problem. Just be advised that GOG.com games are typically running inside some emulation layer or shell in order to operate and haven't been updated, so you're getting the real look and feel of vintage games, with their unusual control schemes and blocky graphics to boot.

GamersGate

GamersGate is another online service where you can download Mac and PC games alike. The service is clientless, just like most of the other services we've talked about, but one cool thing about GamersGate is that they have 'gamified' the experience of using their service with a rewards system.

The more active you are on their boards — posting reviews, ratings, solving problems for other gamers, and more — the more 'Blue Coins' you'll earn, which will get you discount on future orders. You'll also gain experience points, which will entitle you to special discounts on games.

Best Games To Get On Mac App Store Online

Straight from the source

Best Games For Mac App Store

More and more Mac game publishers are hopping on board with support for the platform for their own download services. Electronic Arts' Origin, for example, is where you'd go to download SimCity and connect to other players. Want to buy popular Blizzard games like World of Warcraft or Diablo III? Off to Battle.net with you, then.

So look around — Mac games are a lot more available than you might think. And have fun gaming!

Free Apps For Mac Computer

Do you have other favorite places to buy Mac games? Sound off in the comments.

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