Google continues its annual tradition and today announced its Best of 2020 Awards – the company’s list of the best apps, games, movies, and books for the year. Unsurprisingly, the top apps selected by both Google Play users and editors alike reflect the stressful 2020 with a top sleep app. LoónaIn the meantime, Google Play users have chosen the streaming service Disney + as your choice.
Loóna is a suitable app to win the award this year. The sleep aid promises a mood-changing experience that helps users deal with the negative emotions that accumulate during the day and then process while they sleep. When anxiety and stress increase, people’s sleep patterns and REM sleep are disrupted, Loóna explains. To counteract this, the app offers nightly “sleep landscapes” that combine activity-based relaxation, storytelling, and sounds to help people reduce their stress levels and relax.
Unlike other sleep or meditation apps where users close their eyes and drift away, Loóna is designed to help people relax while they’re still on their phones. Users tap to color pictures while the sleep story is playing. The company also introduced music playlists, so-called soundscapes, this year.
Credit: Loóna
In October, the company reported that its app – which is also available for iOS – was spending an average of 34 minutes a day on its subscribers. The average conversion rate from trial to paid subscriber was 52.5%. With version 2.0, Loóna plans to no longer focus its app only on relaxation before bed, but to become a more comprehensive app for mood management that also covers the sleep and wake cycle, among other things. There are also plans to add personalized content recommendations.
In addition to Loóna, the Google Play editors chose the free action RPG Genshin Impact as the best game of the year to offer players a “wondrous world to explore” while solving puzzles. The game, miHoYo The first open world game features elemental magic battles, character changes and Gacha game monetization to get new characters, weapons and other additions.
However, Google Play users were selected SpongeBob: Krusty Cook-Off as the best game of the year.
Another app that benefited from coronavirus bans was Disney +, which won this year’s User’s Choice Award for Best App. The streaming service helped families stuck at home keep their children entertained. With new shows like “The Mandalorian” the service was also a hit with the grown-ups in the family.
In addition to the top winners, Google announced several other notable titles in its announcement, including Chris Hemsworth’s workout app Centr, Behavior change app intellectas well as games like The gardens between, Harry Potter: Riddles & Spells, and Heaven: children of light.
The Play Store also honored several Gaming sub-genres with their own awards, like the best competitive games, the best indies, the best record and play, and the best game changers. These winners include Brawlhalla, Bullet Echo, GWENT: The Witches Card Game, Legends of Runeterra, The Seven Deadly Sins: Grand Cross, Cookies Must Die, GRIS, Inbento, Labyrinth Machina, Heaven: Children of Light, Disney Frozen Adventures, DreamWorks Trolls Pop, EverMerge , Harry Potter: Riddles and Spells, SpongeBob: Krusty Cook-Off, Fancade, Genshin Impact, Minimal Dungeon RPG, Ord. And The Gardens Between.
Other Top apps were awarded in categories like the best everyday things, the best for personal growth, the best hidden gems, the best for fun, and the best apps forever. These app winners include Calmaria, Grid Diary, The Pattern, Whisk, Zoom, Centr, Intellect, Jumprope: How-To Videos, Paird: Couples App, Speekoo, Cappuccino, Explorest, Loóna, Paperless Mail, Tayasui Sketches, Bazaart, Disney + Dolby On, Reface, Vita, GreenChoice, Medito and ShareTheMeal.
Movies Best of 2020 titles included Bill & Ted Face the Music, Just Mercy, Miss Juneteenth, Onward, and Parasite. while book Winners included A Promised Land by Barack Obama, The City We Became by NK Jesmin, Riot Baby by Tochi Onyebuchi, Solutions and Other Problems by Allie Brosh, and You Had Me at Hola by Alexis Daria.