Apple announced the winners of the 2009 Apple Design Awards last night at a special ceremony hosted by John Geleynse, director of Software Technology Evangelism, and Shann Pruden, senior director for Developer Relations. These awards are an annual affair to recognize “technical excellence, innovation, and outstanding achievement in iPhone and Mac software development.”

The depth and breadth of submissions has been accelerating, as interest in the Mac and iPhone has picked up over the last few years. As a point of comparison, the iPhone awards last year were handed out to early pre-release apps because the App Store had not even launched yet. There were about 1,700 web apps in Apple’s online directory, and this year there are over 4,000 web apps and more than 50,000 native apps available in the iTunes App Store.

Rather than being split out into categories for best game, best user experience, best application, and so on as has been the practice in past years, this year’s awards were simply organized into Mac and iPhone showcases. Here are the 2009 winners.

iPhone Developer Showcase

MLB.com At Bat 2009 from MLB.com

Postage from Rogue Sheep

Topple 2 from ngmoco:)

Tweetie from atebits

Mac OS X Leopard Developer Showcase

Billings from Marketcircle Inc.

BoinxTV from Boinx Software

Things from Cultured Code

Versions from Sofa

Student Awards

Wooden Labyrinth 3D from Elias Pietil

Fontcase from Pieter Omvlee

iPhone OS 3.0

AccuTerra Beta from AccuTerra

This last entry is pretty interesting. We saw lots of exciting and innovative apps in the WWDC Keynote on Monday that take advantage of the new features of iPhone OS 3.0, but AccuTerra was not presented there. The technologies utilized in this new hike tracking app are pretty extensive, though. I’m definitely looking forward to checking this out when it becomes available.

For more information about this year’s winners, here are some articles from TheAppleBlog that mention a few of them…

Weekly App Store Picks: March 14, 2009 (Topple 2)

Tweetie for Mac Update: Now With Video Tweeting

Billings 3 Brings Welcome Updates, Fresh Design

BoinxTV: Broadcasting for the rest of us

BoinxTV Now Shipping

Task Management With Things

12 Subversion Apps for OS X

Keep Your Fonts Together With Fontcase

Fonts 201: Font Management Apps for the Mac

Task Management With Things

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Why iPad 2 Will Lead Consumers Into the Post-PC Era
• The Near-Term Evolution of Social Commerce
• Content Farms: The Players, The Benefits, The Risks

A little while ago, I elected to participate in a new product offering from Boinx Software, called BoinxTV. In all honesty, I had forgotten about the product until I recently received an email telling me where to download a current build and give it a try. This application is pretty comprehensive, and more importantly, it makes the process of creating and editing videocasts fun.

Getting Started

Upon initial launch of the application, you are presented with the following screen:

What is really nice is that Boinx has provided some pre-canned templates to easily generate the type of broadcast you would like to make. Each of the templates are fun and easily modified. Another bonus, as shown with this screenshot is that you can select the resolution for the broadcast, including HD (albeit it is a compressed version at 960×540).

Editing

Once you select the type of template you want, BoinxTV generates the necessary components of the broadcast and then presents you with the following screen:

In this window, you control which elements of the broadcast (audio, video, graphics and more) you want to include. You can also define their properties (left-hand side) and see a preview of the video on the right. Note, I disabled the video in this particular screen — none of you want to see my ugly mug.

Because the application is so flexible, you can either record your video first or last. You can edit the elements of the broadcast at any time. One of my favorite features is that you can define what type of marquee content you want to display across the video, including RSS feeds. This makes the content seem fresh and improves the level of realism.

BoinxTV also supports Apple’s Media Browser, so you can easily drag-and-drop your photos, videos or music files directly into the broadcast you are editing.

Exporting & Publishing

When you have finished recording and making the appropriate edits, you can then decide where you want to export the content. What is great is that BoinxTV exports to PodcastProducer and can easily publish your broadcast to it. Here is an example of the publishing process:

Conclusion

One of the quirks of the application, besides the fact that it is in beta, is that the UI can be a little overwhelming at first. There are so many options and controls for editing, you might be confused as to where to start. However, with a little time and practice, it isn’t too hard to get going.

To learn more about BoinxTV, they have created a screencast available for viewing on iTunes. I am pretty excited about this product and believe that anyone who creates videocasts will appreciate the power that BoinxTV provides. BoinxTV is due to ship by mid-November.

Oh, I have two additional beta invites for those who are really interested. Please write a clever reason as to why I should give you an invite (meaning, how it will really help you) in the comments section below and I will then decide the winner(s) in another post.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Why iPad 2 Will Lead Consumers Into the Post-PC Era
• The Near-Term Evolution of Social Commerce
• Content Farms: The Players, The Benefits, The Risks