WWDC: Apple Design Awards Predictions

It’s almost time for the Apple Design Awards! ADA will be taking place at WWDC this evening. At ADA we’ll see Apple select and reward the developers they see raising the bar the very most in the Mac software world. Winners get some seriously excellent prizes including 2008 WWDC passes, MacBook Pros and other great hardware. Although we have no official information about the category entries nor the winners, there has been some definite buzz and whisperings among the WWDC attendees. In talking with a few devs and attendees today here’s our general consensus about a few ADA categories.

Best Mac OS X Game
Predicted Winner: Frenzic by The Iconfactory
Predicted Runner-Up: Star Wars: Empire at War by Aspyr

This has really been the year of The Iconfactory. Their icon creations in Windows Vista were released to the world, their Twitter client Twitterific took the world by storm - going as far as become synonymous to the service itself. Icon Factory also released the addictive Mac only puzzle game Frenzic which I think stands a very excellent chance of taking home the little glowing aluminum cube this year.

Best Mac OS X Scientific Computing Solution
Predicted Winner: ResolutionMD by CalgaryScientific
Predicted Runner-up: Mathematica 6 by Wolfram Research

While Mathematica is the more well known name in scientific software I really think ResolutionMD by CalgaryScientific really has a chance of giving them a serious run for their money. I happened to sit beside Dr. Ross Mitchell of the CalgaryScientific research team on the plane to San Francisco and was very impressed by the work they’ve done. ResolutionMD has a strong offering on Mac doing important and groundbreaking medical imaging that has even gotten Apple’s attention.

Best Mac OS X Dashboard Widget
Predicted Winner: iStat Nano by iSlayer
Honorable Mention: Photo Drop by Dropping Inc.

It seems to be a general consensus that iStat Nano will be winning an ADA this year. iSlayer has a lot going for themselves and their little widget, they’ve been in the “Staff Favorites” on the Apple Dashboard Widget page more time than anyone can count, they’ve got literally millions of downloads and iStat Nano looks and works great - a winning combination. Personally I was hoping Dropping Inc. would enter Photo Drop into the ADA as well but when I asked Kenichi about it he said that unfortunately he forgot when the deadline was and didn’t enter it this year.

Best Mac OS X Student Product
Predicted Winner: Skim by Michael Mcracken

Skim, an awesome PDF reader, works like a dream, as it has some really cool features that make you say “wow” and has been a bit of a sensation across the Mac universe. Not only do I think this great freeware app will win the ADA for best Student Product but also an Apple Engineer job in the Preview.app unit will be waiting for Mr. Mcracken when he’s ready for it, it’s just too bad he won’t be making it to WWDC personally this year.

Best Mac OS X Leopard Application
Predicted Winner: Delicious Library 2 by Delicious Monster

This is the only category to allow unreleased software, that is, software the world has yet to see. Delicious Monster’s team of gremlins has been working like mad-men since WWDC06 to make Delicious Library 2 use every cool piece of technology in Leopard. Those that have seen the recent work on Library testify to it’s greatness. It follows that Delicious Monster’s yet uncovered Delicious Library 2 could rock the world the way Delicious Monster did in 2005.

Best Mac OS X Developer Tool and Best Mac OS X User Experience
Predicted Winner: Coda by Panic

Panic turned a lot of heads with their release of Coda, including the heads of a lot of people at Apple. Further, Coda is now positioned perfectly to help those who want to start developing 2.0 quality web apps for the iPhone - I really have a feeling Panic will be rewarded for their great timing with this awesome app, but I guess we will see soon enough.

Stay tuned for announcements about the outcome of the Apple Design Awards later this evening.