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

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A few weeks ago I wrote about the beta of BoinxTV and provided a brief overview of the product. As a quick refresher, BoinxTV is a videocasting (video podcasting) tool designed for small production teams. It has a very flexible interface and enables you to quickly record, package and broadcast your video production. I would argue it is a great tool for those who do not have access to the resources of a major broadcasting network.

As of today, the product is shipping in two versions: a sponsored edition (SE) for $199, which inserts a five second ad into your production video or an ad-free edition for $499.

The final release also provides the ability to customize layers using the Quartz composer in OS X 10.5. And, if you need some assistance in creating a layer, Boinx is now offering services to help you do this. Just note that there is a fee for Boinx to do this — $999 per layer. Depending upon your needs, this might seem expensive or inexpensive.

You can learn more about BoinxTV 1.0 here. There is a five-day demo available as well. For all the functionality this product provides in a fairly easy-to-use interface, the value is there for your production needs.

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