Every year, the App Store Awards serve as a thermometer for the digital future. The applications Apple chooses don’t just stand out for their design or performance, but because they represent where the user experience is heading globally.
While these awards are usually viewed from the app development industry’s perspective, they offer valuable insights for any digital business, especially those managing an ecommerce.
The winning apps show how people expect to interact with digital products. And those expectations, inevitably, end up transferring to online commerce.
In this article, I analyze what we can learn—as leaders, ecommerce teams, and conversational experience designers—from the best apps of the year and how to apply those lessons to improve conversion, retention, and the shopping experience.
4 patterns from Apple’s 2025 award-winning apps
The list of winning applications is no coincidence. Apple usually rewards breakthroughs that mark a paradigm shift.
When analyzing Tiimo, Detail, Essayist, Explore POV, Be My Eyes, Strava, and the featured games, four consistent patterns emerge that can also improve how we sell online.
AI for immediate personalization
Tools like Tiimo, Detail, or Be My Eyes show how artificial intelligence is integrating into daily life in a natural way:
- Anticipates needs
- Adapts content
- Simplifies decisions
- Reduces unnecessary steps
This isn’t about “more AI,” but about well-applied AI that works in the background and improves what the user is already doing.
The parallel with ecommerce is clear: a site that understands intent, history, doubts, and preferences can converse more accurately, suggest relevant products, and guide the user based on their real context.
The 2025 user values intelligent assistance, not empty automation.
Simple and accessible UX
If one thing characterizes the award-winning apps, it’s that they don’t confuse. Strava is clear even in high-movement contexts; Essayist organizes academic complexity; HBO Max on Apple TV improves accessibility with details like sign language.
Apple prioritizes experiences that reduce cognitive load.
Less menus. Less mental effort. More clarity.
In ecommerce, the same thing happens: if the user gets lost, they leave. If the chat is slow to respond, they leave. If information is scattered, they leave.
The winning apps show that simplicity is also a strategic decision.
Sustained engagement (gamification and guidance)
Several award-winning apps, from Focus Friend to Pokémon TCG Pocket or Strava, achieve something few ecommerces do: keeping the user coming back.
- Symbolic rewards
- Visible progress
- Micro-challenges
- Constant guidance
In ecommerce, these same dynamics can be applied in chat: unlocking benefits, contextualized recommendations, post-purchase follow-up, and relevant reminders.
Engagement doesn’t happen because the user wants to spend more time on your site; it happens when they feel that moving forward in the conversation provides real value.
Immersive content that guides decisions
Explore POV (Vision Pro), DREDGE (iPad), and despelote share a powerful idea: narrative facilitates action.
Immersion doesn’t always mean augmented reality; it can be clarity, tone, storytelling, or a guided journey that helps one decide.
In ecommerce, a well-designed conversation—with a human tone, clear steps, and messages that organize the decision—can generate that same effect: the user feels that moving forward “makes sense.”
What an ecommerce can learn from the best apps of 2025
The App Store Awards patterns work as an indirect manual of digital best practices. Their application to ecommerce is more direct than it seems.
How to reduce friction and increase conversion
The winning apps prevent the user from overthinking. An ecommerce must achieve the same, especially during the conversation.
- Immediate responses
- Intuitive navigation
- Clarity in pricing, shipping, and policies
Minimizing the time between doubt and solution.
In an environment where every click costs, friction becomes a financial loss.
Replicable behaviors in conversational sales
The apps awarded by Apple in 2025 stand out for their ability to interpret the user’s mental state.
- Detect signs of indecision
- Activate contextual help at strategic moments
- Suggest relevant alternatives
- Guide the process without being invasive
- Remember past preferences
This doesn’t require a complex ecosystem. It requires a chat that understands intent and a trigger strategy designed with product criteria.
Applied examples
Tiimo: Contextual organization
Applicable as: organized recommendations, clear steps, shopping routines.
Be My Eyes: Empathetic assistance
Applicable as: messages that guide, simplify, and do not pressure.
Strava: Motivation and progress
Applicable as: incentives, order tracking, guided repurchase.
Explore POV / Vision Pro: Narrative immersion
Applicable as: conversations that offer a coherent, non-fragmented experience.
These apps prove that when interaction is well-designed, the user doesn’t feel like a system is serving them—they feel understood by someone accompanying them.
3 conversational tactics inspired by the winning apps to improve your CRO
The winning apps offer concrete clues to improve conversion in ecommerce. Here are three practical tactics based on real patterns.
Smart triggers
- When the user reviews the same product multiple times
- When they stay too long on the pricing page
- When they stall at checkout
- When they try to exit
It’s not interrupting, but intervening where doubt actually appears.
Contextual assistance
- Clarify policies while the user is reading them
- Suggest variations when unsure about sizes or shades
- Confirm availability instantly
- Explain payment methods during checkout delays
Contextual assistance turns conversations into decisions.
Micro-interactions that drive progress
- “Great choice, let me show you similar variants”
- “You’re almost done, want to review this together?”
- “If you add this product, shipping is on us!”
Toward an ecommerce that converses, learns, and evolves
The apps Apple awarded in 2025 don’t just celebrate innovation—they show how users expect to interact in the coming years.
They see it as natural for technology to understand context, for assistance to be immediate, for the experience to be simple, and for moving forward to feel intuitive.
The ecommerce that adopts these ideas—personalization, clarity, narrative, guidance, and smart triggers—will not only sell more. It will build experiences the user will want to repeat.
In an increasingly competitive market, the difference isn’t made by the product. It’s made by the conversation.