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During last night's Academy Awards ceremony, Apple debuted a new TV ad, dubbed "Hollywood." The spot follows the same template as other recent ads, but simply uses a movie-connected theme, for instance showing iMovie, and a 3D-rendered Hollywood sign in Maps. Intermixed are clips from Back to the Future, Apollo 13, and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
Apple has announced the winners of the 2012 Apple Design Awards. The event is held every year at WWDC, and recognizes special standouts in iOS and/or Mac apps. In the iPhone category this year's winners were Jetpack Joyride, National Parks by National Geographic, and long-time chart-topper Where's My Water. The iPad winners were the much-hyped drawing app Paper by FiftyThree, along with Bobo Explores Light and DM1 -- The Drum Machine.
Among the other announcements related to the 2012 Worldwide Developer Conference, Apple has also opened nominations for the annual Apple Design Awards for Mac and iOS applications. In addition to apps that are nominated by developers themselves, Apple may opt to nominate an app itself if the company believes the app upholds the best examples of design, technology and innovation. Developers do not have to be present in order to win.
The One Club, a non-profit professional organization for recognizing excellence in the advertising and design industries will induct Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, along with creative talent Paula Green and commercial director Joe Pytka, into its Creative Hall of Fame on January 17th at a ceremony in New York City. Chiat/Day and TBWA/Media Arts Lab pioneer Lee Clow, himself a Hall of Famer, will present some of the 100 Apple ads or designs that have received One Club awards.
As a part of WWDC, Apple has handed out 2011's Apple Design Awards. Developers are selected for design, innovation and technical achievements, and this year competed in four overall categories: Student, iPhone, Mac and iPad. Winners in the Student category include Tapity for Grades 2, Vargatron for Pennant, and Alphonso Labs for Pulse News Reader. iPhone awards are going to Chillingo for Cut the Rope, Shotzoom for Golfscape GPS Rangefinder, and Chair for Infinity Blade.
The 2011 Apple Design Awards -- scheduled to take place during this year's WWDC in San Francisco -- will be limited exclusively to titles available via the Mac or iOS App Stores, according to a section on the awards website. Apps must also be put on sale by May 23rd in order to qualify.
For a fourth year in a row, Fortune has once again identified Apple as its Most Admired company in the world. Apple has an overall score of 8.16. "The company's blistering pace of new product releases has continued to set the bar high for tech companies across the board," Fortune writes.
For the first time, music recorded specifically for the iTunes Store has won a Grammy award. A Train song, "Hey, Soul Sister," took home the award for Best Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals at last night's 2011 Grammys ceremony. The track initially debuted on the band's iTunes Session last fall, although it is now available on Amazon as part of a Grammys compilation.
As part of its annual iTunes Rewind promotion, which highlights content on the iTunes Store, Apple is featuring four iOS apps in particular as award winners. The two iPhone apps are the tower defense game Plants vs. Zombies, and Hipstamatic, which emulates some of the unintentional artistic effects of old film cameras. The featured iPad apps include "social magazine" Flipboard, and Osmos, an indie game meant as much for relaxation as play.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs will be getting a Lifetime Achievement in Technology award from the Vision Awards come September 23rd, says the Beverly Hills Courier. The Awards were founded in 1972, and grant recognition to "pioneering visionaries" in the fields of music, movies, TV, technology, medical research and leadership. The group is primarily concerned with fighting blindness, and has a number of celebrity supporters such as Barbara Walters and Colin Farrell.
The Open World Forum is currently looking for people to showcase open-source products at this year's Demo Cup, which will be a part of the Open Innovation Awards. Twelve companies, selected from written applications, will be nominated and asked to give eight-minute presentations of their work to both an audience and a jury of experts. Submissions should arrive before July 15th, and consist of a 5- to 10-page executive summary and an initial draft of the storyboard for the demo presentation. Finalists will be selected by July 31st, with a main event set to take place October 1st in Paris, France.
As a part of ongoing WWDC proceedings, Apple has handed out the 2010 Apple Design Awards. The candidates were selected mainly on the basis of nominations from developers, although Apple reserved the right to pick its own choices. Winners were rated on a combination of design, innovation, performance and technology adoption.
People shouldn't panic at the absence of Mac categories at this year's 2010 Apple Design Awards, says Steve Jobs. In an e-mail, the CEO explains that Apple is "focusing primarily (though not exclusively) on iPhone OS" for WWDC 2010. "Maybe next year we will focus primarily on the Mac. Just the normal cycle of things. No hidden meaning here," the message concludes.
Mac software will be absent from the Apple Design Awards at WWDC 2010, details reveal. As stated, the company is only handing out five iPad and five iPhone awards, based on nominations of one app per platform from each developer. Categories include innovation, performance, technology adoption and design and user experience.
As a part of the ongoing Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple has announced the winners of its 2009 Design Awards. The Best Mac OS X Student Project award has gone to Pieter Omvlee's Fontcase, which manages fonts in an iPhoto-like interface. The first of four Leopard Developer Showcase awards belongs to Marketcircle's Billings, described by Apple as having a simplified interface that exposes elements only when necessary.
Apple's senior VP of industrial design, Jonathan Ive, has placed first in a Fast Company list of the 100 most creative people in business. Despite being in an executive position Ive is said to be personally responsible for the look of Apple's most important products, including the iPhone and the iPod. The designer's greatest contribution is claimed to be the original iMac, which helped to revive Apple in part because it jettisoned the staid box casing still used by many PCs.
Apple has won four International Forum Design (iF) gold awards at the CeBIT computer expo held in Hannover, Germany, according to setteB.IT. The second-generation iPod touch, fourth-generation iPod nano, iPhone 3G and MacBook Air were among the 50 products considered worthy of the gold award, while an in-ear headset accessory for the iPhone was included in the overall group of design awards.
Pixar's WALL-E won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature at Sunday night's Academy Awards ceremony, defeating competition from Bolt and Kung Fu Panda. The movie -- about a robot left on Earth after an environmental apocalypse -- was also nominated for Original Screenplay, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing and Song awards, but lost to movies such as Milk and The Dark Knight. The dominant title at the Oscars was Slumdog Millionaire, which took home Best Picture and Best Director trophies among others.
The iPhone has fallen two spots in TIME Magazine's annual Top 10 Gadgets rankings, the latest issue reveals. Having taken the top position in 2007, the iPhone now sits in third for 2008, in its second incarnation as the iPhone 3G. The magazine praises the phone for having "launched the era of mobile computing," with over 10,000 applications available, linked to features such as on-board GPS.
Apple has earned an award for its chain of retail stores, a magazine has announced. TWICE (This Week in Consumer Electronics) has handed Apple an Excellence in Retailing Award, specifically within the category of Best Vendor Retailer. Apple Stores give visitors a way to test a variety of products, TWICE comments, and the products are segregated into different areas that encourage experimentation.
Apple has, for the second time this month, won "Gadget of the Year" in a British awards competition. T3's second-annual T3 Gadget Awards ceremony was held on Thursday evening, and included awards chosen by both readers and T3. Readers cast over 54,000 votes to pick 11 of the prizes, which included the Gadget of the Year award, won by Apple's iPod touch.
Apple has won five prizes at this year's British Technology Awards, sponsored by a regional publisher. Four of these are for the iPhone, which earned Apple Gadget of the Year, Best Mobile Technology, Most Stylish Technology and Technological Innovation of the Year. The fourth is for the iTunes Store, which won under the aegis of Best Music Technology. The distribution of awards was based on public voting.
The iPhone 3G has been voted Gadget of the Year by readers of Stuff magazine, says Reuters. The device beat out a number of rivals, including Microsoft's Xbox 360 console, the Wii Fit add-on from Nintendo, and B&W's Zeppelin iPod speakers. Products were rated in categories including performance, design and value, as well as "cool factor;" in this regard the iPhone 3G is described as a "faster, cleverer version of an already remarkable phone," referring to the original iPhone's award last year.
The Mobile Data Association has presented an award to Apple's lead designer, Jonathan Ive, according to an announcement. Ive -- who is technically the senior VP of Industrial Design at the company -- has received a Personal Achievement Award, given in recognition for his design not only of the iPhone hardware but aspects of the touch-based user interface. The combination has "redefined the mobile phone as we know it," the MDA comments.
Apple has announced the winners of its 2008 Design Awards, meant to encourage development for its different product lines. Highlights include Vara Software's ScreenFlow screencasting software, which won both the Best OS X Application and Best OS X Graphics and Media Application awards; Aspyr's port of Guitar Hero III, which won for Best OS X Game; and Omni Group's OmniFocus, which won for Best iPhone Productivity App. Pangea's Enigmo, used to demonstrate iPhone 2.0 apps, took home Best iPhone Game.
Apple's iPhone recently won two prestigious black pencil design awards at the D&AD Awards in the UK, bringing the company's total to six since first winning the award in 1999. According to The Guardian, this makes Apple the most successful participant in the awards ceremony's 45 year history, this time taking home recognition for the design of the iMac and iPhone. Apple was among five companies who won the black pencil, with 64 yellow pencils also being awarded across 30 categories.
Apple is one of the winners of this year's red dot awards, given to the designers of a number of products from around the world. Some 50 awards were given out this year, from a pool of 3,203 submissions submitted by 1,253 companies; Apple secured two awards, for the iMac in the computer category, and the iPhone as best mobile device. Apple has also received red dot quality markings for several other products, namely the iPod touch and nano, the iPhone's Bluetooth headset, and both the cabled and wireless aluminum keyboards.
The Coen brothers -- the creators of 'No Country for Old Men' which won five Oscars at this year's Academy Awards -- have discussed how Apple hardware and software were influential during the editing process of the film's creation. "They [Apple] made it really easy for us — we cut now much the same way we cut on film [using Final Cut Pro]. It's hugely faster," said Ethan Coen. 'No Country for Old Men' won 'Best Picture' this year and is the first movie edited with an entirely digital workflow on a Mac to win the Oscar, according to Macworld.
As announced in late August, Apple CEO Steve Jobs last night received his medal for entry into the California Hall of Fame, an institution meant to promote the state's history and culture. The award was presented personally by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and his wife, Maria Shriver, and as Jobs came to the stage, The Beatles' "Revolution" played in the background.
