2025 Macworld Awards: Apple’s biggest wins and failures

As 2025 draws to a close, Macworld is proud to present our Apple Awards, a look back at the best and worst of everything released over the past 12 months. It’s been a busy year for Apple with new products across the board, including the iPhone, iPad, AirPods, Mac and even the Vision Pro. Join us as we recognize the products that made the biggest impact in 2025:

iPhone/iOS

Emma Rowley / The Foundry

iPhone of the Year: iPhone 17

The iPhone 17 isn’t just the best iPhone of 2025; it’s the best iPhone in five years. Apple has finally stopped holding back on features that should be table stakes for an $800 phone. You get double the storage, 120Hz ProMotion, 50 percent higher peak brightness, an always-on display, better cameras, and speed and battery life, both of which beat last year’s Pro model. All without increasing the price. There has never been a better year No go for. -Jason Cross

Apple

iOS Feature of the Year: Addressing Spam

Call Screening will silently answer unknown numbers and ask them to say why they’re calling, and you’ll see it all right on the screen. It’s a great way to eliminate spam calls without missing out on legitimate calls from numbers you simply don’t have in your contacts. Combine that with new spam filtering in Messages, as well as the Phone app and FaceTime, and Apple is finally doing something about one of the biggest pain points of smartphone use. We still have a long way to go, but since upgrading to iOS 26 and enabling these features, I’ve seen a big drop in the number of times I pick up my phone in a day, only to immediately hang up on a call. -Jason Cross

Britta O’Boyle

Color of the Year: Cosmic Orange

For a company that ditched beige as the default color in computing when it launched the Bondi Blue iMac in 1998, Apple has been rather tame when it comes to its recent color choices. The iPhone 17 Pro’s Cosmic Orange is therefore a refreshing shock to the system and a vibrant return to form. Orange is no longer limited to traffic cones and dodgy furniture from the 1970s. The Apple Store should be handing out sunglasses for the crowds that pick up the shiny new iPhone and ignore the dark blue one. There’s even a growing line of orange accessories available for the new phone. — Simon Jarry

Apple

Feature of the Year: iPhone Pocket

Readers of a certain vintage who still fondly remember when Apple released a pair of socks for its iPod back in 2004 were once again impressed with the unexpected—and indeed unsolicited—iPhone Pocket, which the company described as “a unique 3D knit construction designed to fully wrap around the iPhone while expanding to accommodate your everyday belongings.” Designed in collaboration with the Issey Miyake design studio of Steve Jobs’ famous turtleneck, the iPhone Pocket comes in eight crazy colors, including Peacock, Sapphire and Cinnamon. We all laughed until it sold out in a few minutes. — Simon Jarry

Foundry

Flop of the Year: Liquid Glass

Liquid Glass was Apple’s bold new, all-encompassing design language that radically changed the look of Apple’s software in all OS 26 software updates. Alan Dye, Apple’s VP of Human Interface Design, tried to channel his inner Jony Ive by describing it as making “even the simplest interactions more fun and magical.” We didn’t understand that. Instead, Liquid Glass is the worst example of flamboyance over function, the opposite of Ive’s philosophy. — Simon Jarry

Mac/macOS

Foundry

Mac of the Year: M3 Ultra Mac Studio

Overall, 2025 was a quiet year for Mac hardware, but one Mac had a significant impact on Apple’s lineup. The Mac Studio was a bit of a surprise, as its M3 Ultra chip was released out of sequence with Apple’s usual cadence. Still, it’s the fastest Mac available in Mac Studio, leaving the M2 Ultra Mac Pro behind. At thousands less, the Mac Pro is basically irrelevant to anyone who doesn’t really need an expansion card. With its amazing CPU speed, powerful GPU performance, and robust expandability, Mac Studio has become the king of Macs in 2025. – Roman Loyola

Apple

Chip of the Year: M5

To say “Apple is on the move” undermines how much momentum the company has with its chips. Apple silicon straight up kills it and the M5 chip is an example of that. Making its debut in the MacBook Pro, the M5 provides an ideal and unprecedented combination of processing speed, graphics performance and energy efficiency in a consumer-grade chip. The M5 is so good that Apple felt it could wait until next year to launch the M5 Pro and Max variants. – Roman Loyola

Foundry

Disappointment of the year: Mac Pro

While every other Mac has some version of the M4 and the 14-inch MacBook Pro has an M5, Apple’s most expensive Mac still has the same M2 Ultra chip it got back in June 2023. Meanwhile, the Mac Studio with the excellent M3 Ultra costs several thousand dollars less, and I wonder: How can Apple charge more than $10,000 for an old chip with two thousand? There were many opportunities to update the Mac Pro in 2025, but instead Apple let it languish for another year with an equally aging processor.

iPad/iPadOS

Foundry

iPad of the Year: iPad Pro M5

Apple updated three of its four iPads in 2025 (sorry iPad mini), but the M5 iPad Pro is really the only one that could be considered for this resolution. All three updates were essentially chip refreshes (A14 to A16 (iPad); M2 to M3 (iPad Air); M4 to M5 (iPad Pro), but only the iPad Pro delivered a noticeable improvement over its predecessor. Add 50 percent more base RAM, faster Wi-Fi, and fast charging, and you’ve got an upgrade worthy of a pro. —Michael Simon

Apple

Update of the year: iPadOS 26

This year’s WWDC keynote was packed with features, from liquid glass to live translation and a redesigned app design. But the star of the show was iPadOS 26, which introduced a new interface that included many of the visual and productivity features users have wanted for years, with resizable windows, macOS-like multitasking, and a new lease of life. —Michael Simon

Apple Watch

David Price / Foundry

Watch of the Year: Apple Watch SE 3

Strictly speaking, the Series 11 was the best Apple Watch to come out this year (I find the Ultra models too bulky for everyday wear), but the SE 3 was without a doubt the one I’d recommend to a friend. It’s almost as good and a much better value. As part of the 2025 update, the SE gained an always-on display, a larger battery with longer life, improved scratch resistance, new health features and gestures, Siri on the device and 5G capability. And all for $249! Forget Series 11; it has everything you need from a smart watch at an excellent price. —David Price

Services

Apple

Apple TV Show of the Year: ‘Pluribus’

There’s something nerve-wracking about recommending a TV show mid-run – especially one as unpredictable as *Pluribus*. Who knows where it will go from here? But just six episodes into the debut season of this often funny, sometimes harrowing sci-fi drama, and even against strong competition from the second season of *Severance*, I feel (reasonably) confident in naming it the Apple TV show of the year. As you’d expect from a Vince Gilligan production, *Pluribus* moves seamlessly between slow-burning beauty and sudden shocking action, between grievance and humor and mystery. And Rhea Seehorn is great as the last unhappy woman in the world. It might go downhill at times, but let’s enjoy the ride while it lasts —David Price

Foundry

Service of the Year: News +

Apple TV and Music may get all the attention, but Apple News+ has come into its own in 2025. Apple’s daily puzzles have long revolved around pedestrian offerings like crosswords and sudoku, but a completely original concept, the Emoji Game, has quickly become a unique and highly entertaining option for users looking for original concepts. And for those of us tired of the fluff and intrusive ads we encounter when searching for recipes on Google, Apple News+ has added a new search feature that lets you find recipes and view ingredients and directions in a clean interface. Nice, right? It will get better. You can directly set timers based on the specified durations and add the specified ingredients to the Reminders app. — Mahmoud Itani