- Hey guys, it's Justine,
and today Apple announced
the top 15 best apps of 2020.
This includes iPhone, iPad, TV, Apple Watch, and Mac.
I also got a chance to chat
with some of the developers of some of these apps,
and it was kind of cool to hear their perspectives.
Some of them have been creating these apps
for a very, very long time.
For example, one of the winners
for the App Trend of the Year is Explain Everything.
It's kind of this realtime whiteboarding app
that has been used in a lot of different classrooms.
Now this company has been working on this app
for almost 10 years,
and it was really incredible to hear from them directly
how much work they put into this,
and how now, at a time when this is something
that is needed more than ever,
it's something that could not have been duplicated
in such a short amount of time,
to kind of fill that need for this app.
So every year, there's kind of a trend with apps,
and this year the trend was helpfulness,
which kind of is very fitting.
We've been using apps to do so many different things now.
I mean, I feel like we're actually relying on them
more than ever.
Obviously this year has changed
the way that we do so many things,
from just everyday tasks, like working out,
to working, working,
to connecting with our friends and family
because we can't do in-person gatherings anymore.
These are kind of the apps
that have been helpful in getting things done
and making our lives a little bit more manageable
for this 2020 (laughing).
So first up, let's go through the best of the 2020 winners.
Number one, the iPhone app of the year is Wakeout!
I did get a chance to chat with the developers of this one.
They basically started it as an app
that you open up every day when you wake up,
and then you do some exercises.
But what this app has turned into
during this whole pandemic craziness
is quite fascinating.
- During the quarantine,
it became something more special
than we were looking for,
and we've been able to help families just stay active.
We'd like to invite you to do just a very brief,
30 (audio glitches) Wakeout. - Okay, do I have to stand up?
- Just where you are
and as you are. - Okay, good, I'm attached.
(upbeat techno music)
- Feel it, feel it, do it.
(people cheering)
- Such a great concept,
because I think a lotta people don't realize
how much you can actually do just with bodyweight,
and they're like, no, I have to go to a gym,
I have to go to this.
I'm like, no, you have yourself, you're fine.
- It's about getting that spark of energy,
basically, just getting started
and just being able to just be silly anywhere.
- Number two is the iPhone Game of the Year, Genshin Impact.
Number three, the iPad App of the Year is Zoom.
Have you guys heard of a Zoom,
have you used it before?
We've all used it, we all know what it is (laughing).
The iPad Game of the Year is Legends of Runeterra.
And this is actually by Riot,
so I'm sure many of you have played League of Legends
or at least heard of League of Legends.
I actually played League of Legends when it first came out,
and then over the years
I went to tons of their Esports tournaments.
And League of Legends is such a fun game,
so this kind of bringing a lot of those champions
from League of Legends into this card-based game.
And I've never played this game before,
and now, after hearing more about it, guess what I did.
I downloaded it.
- I'm Jeff Jew, I'm the executive producer
for Legends of Runeterra.
League of Legends has been
one of the world's most played games for over 10 years.
We wanted a game that changed the way
that players thought about collectable card games,
also known as CCGs.
- I've never really played any type of card game before.
- Oh wow, okay, yeah.
- But for somebody who has never played this type of game,
me being one of those,
what would you say is your best advice to them,
and what can they expect?
- A digital card game like ours
is so much easier to get into.
You're not dealing with collecting a bunch of cards
you have to store physically and things like that.
And when we made this game,
we assumed nobody would know how to play,
so there's a tutorial you can use,
there's a lot of challenges.
- Thank you, and congratulations on your award.
Who gets the award? Who gets to keep it?
Are you guys
gonna pass it around? - Well it was sent to my house
so technically, - Okay, good.
- No, no, I'm just kidding.
I'll take a lot of photos with it,
and then at the end,
when we can finally go back,
I don't know, hopefully over the next year,
we'll proudly have it in our area at work.
- Mac App of the Year is Fantastical.
Now this app is really interesting,
because it has been around quite a while,
but what they did with this app
for this year specifically
is they had to completely shift around
a lot of their product road maps
to kind of fit they way that we're working now.
So I got a chance to chat with Michael,
who showed me some really cool features of Fantastical.
How's everything going?
Congrats on the app.
- It's a whirlwind, I have to show you this.
This is just incredible.
I am speechless.
- It looks so cool, is it heavy?
- It weighs like, I'm not kidding,
it's probably like 20 pounds.
- (gasps) It's so cool.
It's like a extended Mac mini.
- Wow, the M1s really are heavy duty.
So you see this Join button that's here?
- [Justine] Mm-hmm. - So this is really magical.
So what it's doing is,
when you have a meeting that you've created,
and you have a Zoom link or a Google Meet link
or a Skype link or you-name-it link,
literally we wanna support every service,
and we pretty much do,
it will automatically scan the event for the link
and auto-magically put a Join button in your list.
So you never again have to be, where's that link?
- That's so cool, 'cause it is such a hassle.
- The other cool thing that we did was
adding the ability to create conference calls
when you create your meetings.
Tomorrow, 1 PM, I click Add Zoom Meeting,
and just like that, here's all my Zoom options.
With this one creation point,
I'm creating the event,
I'm inviting you,
I'm adding the Zoom meeting,
and you're getting the Zoom invite
all with one click.
- All these updates that you guys did
is really incredible.
You guys are saving 2020 for all of us
clicking those Zoom and (laughs)
WebX links and everything.
The Mac Game of the Year is Disco Elysium.
Apple TV App of the Year is Disney+.
I am a Disney+ subscriber.
Has anybody watched the second season of Mandalorian yet,
because I have not, so please, no spoilers.
I can't wait to watch it.
I loved the first season so much.
The Apple TV Game of the Year is Dandara Trials of Fear.
Actually haven't played this one either,
but it is now on my To Play list.
It's kinda cool because there are some apps
and games on this list
that I never got a chance to try,
and I mean, what better time than now?
They've already been certified
as the top apps of 2020.
What are we waiting for?
This one is kind of neat.
This is the Apple Watch of the Year, it's called Endel.
I've also never tried this,
and me being such a huge Apple Watch fan,
also on the To Try list.
The Apple Arcade Game of the Year is,
without a doubt, one of my favorite games,
so this is incredibly fitting that it did win (laughs)
App of the Year, Sneaky Sasquatch.
This game is so cute and it's incredible,
and I know that you guys have heard me talk about it before,
and my sister has also said this is her favorite game.
And you guys also know that I kind of love Bigfoot, too,
so it is the perfect game ever.
If you haven't checked it out, definitely recommend.
So now we're going into the App Trends of the Year,
which, as a reminder, was helpfulness.
So the first one is Shine,
and this is for helping users practice self-care.
And the next one is Explain Everything,
I already talked about this one at beginning.
That's the whiteboard app
that you can do remote collaboration.
The next one is Caribu,
and this is used for connecting families to loved ones.
The next one is Pokemon GO.
The amount of Pokemon GO that I played
when this game first came out,
what this game did for me
is it kind of became this lifestyle.
I would actually plan out times during the day
where I would go play Pokemon GO.
I found so many really cool restaurants,
so many amazing parks,
I met so many of you guys out in the middle of the street.
And when you see somebody walking around
with their phone in their face,
you have that connection.
It's like, we know what you're doing,
you're playing Pokemon GO.
- Had I shown this a year and a half ago,
I'd be like, oh yeah, this is normal.
Nowadays you look at that,
and you're like, I hope that's not by my house.
I hope no one I know is in there.
We tried to make it so, regardless of your situation,
you'll still be able to play the essence of Pokemon GO.
- And actually today we are launching
our new GO Beyond update,
which is our biggest update ever to Pokemon GO.
It includes Pokemon that are new to the game,
originally from the Kalos region,
new seasons, new ways to enjoy events in our game
like Pokemon Go Fest,
and updates to leveling for every single player.
- And the last one is ShareTheMeal,
and this is cool because you can basically share a meal
with a child in need.
So you basically only need 80 cents,
and that will feed one child for a day.
I'm on their website right now,
and it says that they've shared over 89,000 meals.
That's pretty impressive.
There's also the Most Downloaded charts,
which this kind of interesting.
So the top free iPhone apps,
Zoom, TikTok, Disney+, YouTube,
Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat,
Messenger, Gmail, and the Cash App.
If you guys had to pick your top favorite apps of 2020,
leave 'em in the the comments below,
what would they be?
Top paid iPhone apps:
TouchRetouch, Procreate Pocket,
Dark Sky Weather, Facetune, huh, hm,
HotSchedules, AutoSleep Track Sleep,
the Wonder Weeks, SkyView,
Shadowrocket, and Sky Guide.
Top free iPhone games (gasps):
Among Us!, Call of Duty: Mobile,
Roblox, Subway Surfers, Ink Inc. Tattoo Drawing,
oh, I'm interested,
Magic Tiles 3: the Piano Game, freaking loved Magic Tiles,
Brain Test, tricky puzzles,
Brain Out, Coin Master, and Cube Surfer!
Top paid iPhone games:
Minecraft, Plague Inc., Heads Up!,
Monopoly, Bloons TD 6, Geometry Dash,
NBA2K20, Grand Theft Auto, the Game of Life, and True Skate.
There's so many games that I have not played.
Top free iPad apps,
we've got Zoom, Disney+, YouTube, Netflix,
Google Chrome, TikTok, Amazon Prime Video,
Gmail, Hulu, and Google Classroom.
The top paid iPad apps
are Procreate, GoodNotes 5,
Notability, Duet Display, Teach Your Monster,
LumaFusion, yeah, freaking love LumaFusion,
Affinity Designer, Toca Hair Salon 3,
Toca Life Hospital, Toca Kitchen.
I've never heard of those, but I'm interested.
Top free iPad games:
Among Us!, Roblox, Magic Tiles 3, Ink Inc.,
Call of Duty: Mobile, Subway Surfers,
Dancing Road: Color Ball Run!, Tiles Hop: EDM Rush,
Mario Kart Tour, yes,
Save the Girl!, exclamation point.
Top paid iPad games:
Minecraft, Monopoly, Bloons TD6, Plague Inc.,
Geometry Dash, The Game of Life,
Five Nights at Freddy's, Human: Fall Flat,
Stardew Valley, and Terraria.
Top arcade games:
Sneaky Sasquatch, Hot Lava, Skate City,
Sonic Racing, PAC-MAN Party Royale,
SpongeBob: Party Pursuit, Oceanhorn 2,
Crossy Road Castle, WHAT THE GOLF?, and LEGO Brawls.
Wow, wow, that's a lot of apps.
What are my top favorite apps?
I left my phone downstairs.
You would think that I would have my phone with me
at this current point in time.
I guess my top five most used apps,
I would say is Instagram, Twitter, Messages,
I'm always in the messaging app.
And then as far as conferencing goes,
I use Zoom, I use WebX,
and I also use Microsoft Teams a lot.
One app that I just recently started using a lot
for my livestreams is EpocCam, e-POCH,
I might be mispronouncing it.
You can use your iPhone as a webcam.
So you can either use it on Wi-Fi,
or you can plug it into your computer,
and it'll basically turn your iPhone into a webcam.
I actually used it for a couple of my livestreams before,
and I don't think anybody even noticed,
or thought, wow, that's an iPhone that she's using.
It looks so good.
I definitely recommend it, it's new by Elgato.
They make all kinds of really cool gaming stuff,
so that's one app that was kind of a big surprise for me,
and I've been using it quite a lot.
So I guess that's it.
I just wanted to share with you guys
this really cool Apple news.
I feel like, for a lot of us,
apps have kind of kept us entertained,
kept us sane, and kept us more connected than ever.
Be sure to subscribe,
and I will see you in the next video, bye.
(gentle chill music)