Apple Announces Best of 2018 from Apps to Movies

With less than a month to go in 2018, the inevitable best-of lists start to roll around. One list that is actually worthwhile paying attention to is the Apple Best of 2018.

“It’s an invariable list of the who’s who and what’s what from the past year that is certain to help answer at least some of the most burning questions and make for fun conversation around any holiday dinner table,” says Apple.

The Apple list breaks everything up into nice chunks so you can skip straight to your biggest indulgence whether that is in the App store or the Apple bookstore.

Best from the app store

First up - where most of us spend a lot of time - the App store.

According to Apple battle royale-style games dominated the games list while there was a big swing towards wellness apps like 10% Happier and Headspace.

The best iPhone App of the Year was awarded to Procreate Pocket while the best iPhone Game of the Year was the popular Donut County.

Apple music for everyone

Streaming music is commonplace now. Apple music users familiar with the service know that with it brings access to all the best new music.

Apple’s music editors have crunched the numbers and trends and are ready to hand out the crowns.

Artist of the Year category goes unsurprisingly to Drake while the album of the year deservingly is given to Kasey Musgraves for her album Golden Hour.

The formidable collaboration between Cardi B, J. Balvin and Bad Bunny that produced I Like It took the song of the year.

If you want to recap some of the best music of 2018 or see what you missed out on then head over to Apple Music’s global year-end charts and editorial playlists which will have you covered for the entire holiday season. Podcasts have become insanely popular.

While there has been a big interest in true crime podcasts, Apple Podcast editors have found that investigative reporting really took their listeners interest.

The New York Times’ Caliphate, and American Public Media’s In the Dark were highly listened to as were celebrity podcasts such as Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert, and Oprah’s Master Class.

Taking out the top six podcasts were:

Year In The Dark

Caliphate

The Dream

Everything is Alive

Slow Burn

Dr. Death

Best of TV and film crosses genres. 

The winners in the TV and film section cross such a broad range of genres it’s impossible to say where the biggest trends lie. The top five movies on Apple TV for 2018 are

Annihilation

Black Panther

Crazy Rich Asians

Eighth Grade

Green Book*

Hereditary

The gold, silver, and bronze for best TV goes to:

The Americans

Atlanta

Barry

Apple Books gets a revamp

Apple books were completing relaunched in 2018, so now it’s easy for iPhone and iPad users to find and read books and audiobooks.

[see-also]

Politics dominated the popular read with Fire and Fury, Fear and A Higher Loyalty all appearing in the top 10 best-selling.

Audiobooks are perfect if you have a long commute or enjoy audio entertainment while you go about your day.

This year the best Audiobook of the Year went to American Marriage and best Nonfiction went to 21 Lessons for the 21st Century.

Other popular books were those that might have been first encountered on the screen such as Kevin Kwan’s Crazy Rich Asians and Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects.

Check the full list on the Apple announcement page.