Whether you liked it or not, all of us probably spent a lot more time with our smartphones this year as we dealt with being stuck at our respective homes. And while the word “best” will probably not be associated with 2020 in future annals, Google still wants to recognize the best of 2020 at least on their Google Play Store. They are now opening up the voting for the Users’ Choice part of their Google Play’s Best of awards.
Google Play’s Best of awards has two parts, the Editor’s Picks which they will announce on December 1 and the Users’ Choice part where the most popular apps are chosen by the users themselves. There are four categories: apps, games, books, and movies. Each of those already have a shortlist of 10 items that were the most popular and trending in their respective categories. They are also localized by country so as to be more relevant.
On the U.S list, the shortlisted apps for the apps category are pretty varied. Microsoft Office is in there as well as Vimeo which are both pretty useful but you also get the Reface app which just lets you do silly but fun things like face swapping. Chris Hemsworth’s Centr fitness app is shortlisted as well as Disney+, which has several Hemsworth movies as well. For the games aside, you have titles like Grand Hotel Mania, Disney Sorcerer’s Arena, and Harry Potter: Puzzles and Spells.
The Books and Movies categories shortlisted the most popular titles from Google Play Books and the Google Play Movies & TV store. You have new titles from Stephen King, Veronica Roth, and Stephanie Meyer in the books part. The Movies category has the new Bill & Ted movie, good ole Frozen II, Birds of Prey, and last year’s Oscar Best Picture, Parasite. Not all of the titles in the categories are new per se but it’s what people have been reading and watching.
The voting period for Google’s Best Of is until November 23 so you can go ahead and cast your vote over on this page. The winners will be announced by December 1, alongside the Editor’s Picks.
