On Monday, Apple's shortlist for its prized "iPhone App of the Year" once more underscores how the manufacturer of iPhones tries to downplay the effect of AI technology on the mobile app world. Just as it did last year, Apple's top iPhone contenders for 2024 are more traditional iOS apps, such as those that help iPhone users get specific jobs done, like recording professional video (Kino), tailoring a running plan (Runna), or organizing travels (Tripsy). Other AI apps like ChatGPT, Anthropic's Claude, Microsoft Copilot, and those that create AI photos or videos were not on the list for iPhone App of the Year.

Given the popularity of ChatGPT, now an Apple partner for its improvements to Siri, it's surprising that the app hasn't received any official year-end recognition from Apple's App Store editorial team, despite integrating some savvy new features in 2024, including an Advanced Voice Mode to chat with the AI virtual assistant and a web search feature that indeed competes with Google.

While ChatGPT appears frequently in the App Store and Google Play's editorial recommendations, neither Apple nor Google nominated ChatGPT as their overall winner last year, although the app became the fastest-growing consumer application in history in early 2023 when it reached 100 million users shortly after its launch. This year Google named party-planning app Partiful its app of the year.

Despite ChatGPT's snub, a few AI-powered apps did make it onto Apple's other 2024 finalist lists, including those for the iPad and Mac App of the Year.

However, from Apple's list of 45 finalists across various categories in apps and games, AI-powered apps surfaced only a few times. Moises is an app offering AI tools to practice music and was nominated alongside the kids app Bluey: Let's Play and the animation app Procreate Dreams for iPad App of the Year. Other contenders included Adobe Lightroom, which introduced AI-powered features, productivity app OmniFocus 4, and 3D design app Shapr 3D for Mac App of the Year.

And, of a dozen Cultural Impact finalists, only one was described by Apple as an app enhanced by AI technology --- language-learning app EF Hello. (While other apps may use AI under the hood, as the finalist Pinterest does, their App Store marketing doesn't promote them as "AI" apps to consumers.)

In fact, Apple's curated list of finalists suggests that apps empowering human creativity, rather than apps assisting with AI automation, are those apps of which one should be proud. Most of the finalists' apps help the users do something more with their iPhone or other device without using an AI assistant or features to get the thing done, whether that's designing, organizing, filming, creating, or playing.

Take Kino, for example. The pro video app from the creators of the pro camera app Halide aims to make everyone a better videographer, and others help Apple's devices work as productivity tools for those in creative fields.

Besides that, Apple has added the new category: Apple Vision Pro, where it will pick winners for an app and a game this year.