Best App Ever Awards

Welcome to the 5th Best App Ever Awards

Another year has passed and here we are ready to kick off the fifth edition of the Best App Ever Awards. In the past year we have seen the iOS App Store balloon to over 700,000 apps. We've got our work cut out for us. How do we go through all those apps to determine the best ones? Looks like it is time to get things moving.

About The Awards

The Best App Ever Awards were created to celebrate the best mobile apps and games available, as chosen by our readers. Our goal is to help gather together the very favorite apps of the real users, not just the best-selling ones. Last year we added Android into the awards, and we are doing that again this year, but the awards will be separated. iOS awards will be done first, and then we will follow with the Android edition right after that. See the timeline below for more details.

Rules

The process for the awards starts with the nomination phase. You are invited to nominate any app released at any time in any of the categories. All nominations are subject to editorial data verification. An app may be disqualified from nomination if it does not match a requirement of the category (such as price, genre, platform, etc.). In addition, an app may be moved, at the judges discretion, to a different category if that category is a better fit.

Each user is allowed to nominate any app just once in a category. A user may nominate more than one app in a category and may nominate a single app in multiple categories.

Once all nominations are totaled and verified, we'll take the top 10 nominated apps for each category and designate those as the final nominees. Once the final nominees are set, the site will open for voting. Voters can cast their ballot for a single app in each category.

Special Industry Awards - In addition to the awards voted on by the public, special industry awards will be created this year as well. Exact awards and winners will be announced later.

Best App Ever - Special Award - In addition, the 10 apps that get the most nominations across all categories will compete for the prestigious Best App Ever Award. A single app will be crowned the Best App Ever based on user votes.

There will be one winner selected for each category.

Each user as determined by IP address, will be allowed one vote per category.

There are absolutely no fees for nomination, voting, or awards from the Best App Ever Awards. The Best App Ever Awards Committee reserves the right to disqualify any nomination or vote it reasonably determines to be fraudulent, violates the rules, or is submitted by bots or other computer generated voting application. These rules are subject to change at any time. These awards are produced by 148Apps.com.

Timeline

iOS Awards

Early November - Dec 31, 2012 :: Nominations Accepted in all individual categories

Jan 3, 2013 :: Top 10 Nominees for Each Category and Best App Ever Announced

Jan 3 - 31, 2013 :: Voting for all categories and Best App Ever open

Feb 26, 2013 :: Winners Announced (details TBA)

Android Awards

TBA (Likely March, 2013 kick-off)

June, 2013 :: Winners Announced at Google I/O, San Francisco, CA (details TBA)

How To Nominate Apps and Games

The nomination phase is open through December 31st, 2012. To nominate an app, first go to the list of categories and select the appropriate category for the app you wish to nominate and click on that category.

At the category page, search for the app you wish to nominate, taking note of the search tips on that page to help you find the particular app you are interested in nominating.

When you see the app you wish to nominate in the list, click on the title and you will be taken to the nomination confirmation page.

At that page you have a variety of options to share your nomination via Facebook, Twitter, and more.

Developer Involvement

Application developers are encouraged to direct their users to the site to nominate/vote for their app in the categories the developer wants to focus on. The easiest way to do this is to nominate the app themselves and then grab one of the links for nomination from the page on that nomination or voting page. Along with the direct link to nominate of vote for your app in the category you have chosen, you will find Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ social buttons there, along with an html widget you can embed on your site.

Other promotions we have seen in the past include Facebook, Twitter, and email blasts. Even in-app news and pop-ups asking people to vote and nominate. While we encourage all of this we ask that no real good or virtual good incentives be given to the users for them to nominate or vote as we want to keep the vote as natural as possible. Any violations of these guidelines may result in the app nominations or votes being zeroed out.

Short History of the Best App Ever

The Best App Ever Awards were first conceived after the iTunes App Store opened in July, 2008. At that point, we knew there would be a need to develop a site that could help people find the very best apps, not just the biggest sellers. We ask that you please participate in the Best App Ever Awards to help us honor the best, not just the best-selling.

Take a look at the previous winners in the 2008, 2009, 2010, or the 2011 Best App Ever Awards.

Thanks

Thanks to Steve Jobs and Apple for revolutionizing the mobile world with the iPhone and the App Store. Thanks to TechCrunch -- we took lots of inspiration on how this site would work from their Crunchies 2008 awards. A special thanks to Patrick Jordan of iPad Insight for help setting up and testing the 2010 and 2011 awards.

And most importantly, thanks to you for helping grow the Best App Ever awards to what it has become today.

Contact

If you need any further clarification on the Best App Ever Awards, please contact us at bestappever@148apps.com.