If you follow both Apple and Google, you’ll know that Apple does their own awards for apps on the App Store each year at WWDC – their own developer conference. Google hasn’t done that, but this year they will be. In addition to launching the Google I/O 2016 schedule today, Google is also announcing the Google Play Awards. To showcase some of the best apps available on Google Play. In Google’s blog post today, they noted that the program is going to have five nominees across about 10 award categories. They will also be featured in a dedicated collection over on Google Play. Giving these apps even more recognition for those browsing through the Google Play Store. The search giant notes that these nominees were chosen by a panel of experts, based on criteria including app quality, innovation and having had a major update or launched in the past 12 months.
Some of the categories in the Google Play Awards include Standout Startup, Standout Indie, Best Families App, Best Use of Material Design, Best Use of Google Play Game Services, Early Adopter, Go Global, Most Innovative, Best App, and Best Game. Some of the bigger names that have been nominated include Clash of Kings, Clash Royale, BuzzFeed News, TuneIn Radio, Fast like a Fox, SmartNews, Memrise, Musixmatch, Pokemon Shuffle Mobile, Glide, Zumper, Sea Battle 2, Hopper, Musical.ly and Robinhood. Of course you can see the complete list of nominees on Google’s blog post which is in the source link below.
This is a pretty big deal here, and definitely gives developers and apps some bragging rights to get users to download their apps. This means that developers will now get the proper recognition for creating some amazing apps on Android and putting them in Google Play. Even though they already get recognition from users, it’s nice to get the recognition from Google, especially in the “Best Use of Material Design section.
Google has said that the winners of each category will be announced at Google I/O next month in Mountain View. So if you’re interested to see who wins, be sure to stay tuned and find out when the rest of us do.