Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

Apple reveals its best and most popular iPhone apps in 2019

Retro games are making a comeback in new forms, Apple says

Andrew Griffin
Tuesday 03 December 2019 10:05 GMT
Comments
The skyline of New York, where Apple held its special event celebrating its winners, as shot on app Spectre
The skyline of New York, where Apple held its special event celebrating its winners, as shot on app Spectre

Apple has revealed the most popular apps of 2019, and those it thinks are the best.

Spectra Camera, which uses artificial intelligence to create long-exposure images that can make people disappear, is the company's favourite app of the year.

But it was far from the most popular. The top charts of the most-used apps included a variety of expected names – such as WhatsApp, Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube – as well as newer apps like TikTok and the briefly wildly popular FaceApp.

Each year, Apple reveals both its choice as the best apps as well as the most downloaded across its devices and app stores. The winners can be found below.

This time around, winners were revealed as part of an Apple "special event" in New York City, which honoured the developers who created them. Unusually, Apple did not use the event to make any of its own announcements or to reveal new products, but instead highlighted developers that make their apps available through its platform.

Apple also awarded an Apple Arcade award for the first ever time, following the subscription service's launch earlier this year. It went to 'Sayonara Wild Hearts', which has been widely praised by critics.

As well as its awards and top charts, Apple pointed out two trends of the year, with one in gaming and the other in apps.

In gaming, it said that the theme of the year had been "Blockbusters Reborn", as a variety of different popular licenses from other platforms finally arrive in mobile. It pointed to games including Mario Kart Tour, Minecraft: Earth, The Elder Scrolls: Blades, Pokemon Masters and Call of Duty: Mobile as examples of titles that have long been popular on devoted consoles but had at last made it onto the App Store.

Its app trend of the year is "The Storyteller Within", and it said that a wide variety of apps had aimed to allow people to express themselves better. It featured apps like Unfold, Anchor, Canva Stories, Over and Spark Camera as examples of what it said were a "groundswell of apps".

Other awards went to Sky: Children of the Light as game of the year, Flow by Moleskine as iPad app of the year and Hyper Light Drifter as iPad game of the year.

The most downloaded apps and games of the year were:

iPhone apps – free:

1. WhatsApp Messenger

2. Instagram

3. Snapchat

4. YouTube: Watch, Listen, Stream

5. Messenger

6. Facebook

7. Spotify: Get music and podcasts

8. TikTok - Make Your Day

9. Netflix

10. Google Maps - Transit & Food

11. FaceApp - AI Face Editor

12. Uber Eats: Food Delivery

13. Amazon

14. Gmail - Email by Google

15. Wish - Shopping Made Fun

16. Uber

17. Just Eat - Food Delivery

18. Twitter

19. Microsoft Outlook

20. eBay Shopping - Buy and Sell

iPhone apps – paid:

1. Driving Theory Test 4 in 1 Kit

2. Official DVSA Theory Test Kit

3. The Wonder Weeks

4. Forest - Stay focused

5. Facetune

6. Dark Sky Weather

7. Squeezy NHS Pelvic Floor App

8. Ski Tracks

9. TouchRetouch

10. Afterlight — Photo Editor

11. kirakira+

12. Toca Hair Salon 3

13. Procreate Pocket

14. CITB Op/Spec HS&E test 2019

15. Northern Lights Photo Taker

16. AutoSleep Tracker for Watch

17. Hit the Button Maths

18. HappyCow Find Vegan Food

19. Full Fitness : Exercise Workout Trainer

20. Freya • Surge Timer

iPhone games – free:

1. Mario Kart Tour

2. Coin Master

3. Color Bump 3D

4. aquapark.io

5. Fun Race 3D

6. Stickman Hook

7. 8 Ball Pool™

8. Draw it

9. BitLife - Life Simulator

10. Drive and Park

11. Paper.io 2

12. AMAZE!!!

13. Magic Tiles 3: Piano Game

14. Run Race 3D

15. Crowd City

16. Traffic Run!

17. Polysphere - art of puzzle

18. Fortnite

19. Helix Jump

20. Call of Duty®: Mobile

iPhone games – paid:

1. Heads Up!

2. Football Manager 2019 Mobile

3. Minecraft

4. Plague Inc.

5. The Chase: Ultimate Edition

6. Rebel Inc.

7. Bloons TD 6

8. Tenable

9. Pocket Build

10. Bloons TD 5

11. Tipping Point

12. Geometry Dash

13. Earn to Die 2

14. Football Chairman Pro

15. Motorsport Manager Mobile 3

16. Countdown - The Official TV Show App

17. Mini Metro

18. Stardew Valley

19. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

20. Construction Simulator 3

— —

iPad apps – free:

1. Netflix

2. Amazon Prime Video

3. YouTube: Watch, Listen, Stream

4. BBC iPlayer

5. ITV Hub

6. Messenger

7. Facebook

8. All 4

9. Spotify Get music and podcasts

10. Microsoft Word

11. Google Chrome

12. Sky Go

13. TikTok - Make Your Day

14. Amazon

15. Calculator ٞ

16. BBC Sounds

17. NOW TV: Movies, TV & Sports

18. YouTube Kids

19. Gmail - Email by Google

20. Google Maps - Transit & Food

iPad apps – paid:

1. Procreate

2. Notability

3. GoodNotes 5

4. Driving Theory Test 4 in 1 Kit

5. Hit the Button Maths

6. Duet Display

7. Spelling Shed

8. Nebo Professional note-taking

9. Toca Hair Salon 3

10. Teach Your Monster to Read

11. Numberblocks Hide and Seek

12. Toca Life: Neighborhood

13. Affinity Photo

14. LumaFusion

15. Alphablocks - Letter Fun

16. Affinity Designer

17. Messaging for Whatsapp Chat

18. Peppa Pig: Holiday

19. Toca Kitchen 2

20. PDF Expert 7: PDF Editor

iPad games – free:

1. Roblox

2. Magic Tiles 3: Piano Game

3. aquapark.io

4. Color Bump 3D

5. Paper.io 2

6. Fun Race 3D

7. Draw it

8. Coin Master

9. Matchington Mansion

10. Run Race 3D

11. Fortnite

12. Tiles Hop - EDM Rush

13. Helix Jump

14. Polysphere - art of puzzle

15. Crowd City

16. Stickman Hook

17. Kick the Buddy: Forever

18. Homescapes

19. Traffic Run!

20. Wordscapes

iPad games – paid:

1. Minecraft

2. Football Manager 2019 Mobile

3. Football Manager 2019 Touch

4. Plague Inc.

5. The Chase: Ultimate Edition

6. Geometry Dash

7. Rebel Inc.

8. The Room: Old Sins

9. Heads Up!

10. Tipping Point

11. Bloons TD 6

12. Tenable

13. Stardew Valley

14. Amazing Frog?

15. The Room

16. Smart Baby Shapes: Learning games for toddler kids

17. Terraria

18. Pocket Build

19. Kingdom Rush Vengeance

20. Five Nights at Freddy’s

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in