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Apple just acquired the app that won last year’s ‘Innovation’ Apple Design Award

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Why This Matters

Apple's acquisition of Play, the app recognized for its innovative approach to building interactive prototypes with SwiftUI, signifies its strategic move to enhance developer tools and streamline app development workflows. This move could lead to tighter integration of prototyping features within Apple's ecosystem, benefiting developers and consumers by enabling faster, more efficient app creation. The acquisition highlights Apple's ongoing commitment to fostering innovation and expanding its developer resources.

Key Takeaways

Apple has acquired a variety of apps recently, and the latest—Play—won the 2025 Apple Design Award in the ‘Innovation’ category. Here’s what it does.

‘Play’ focused on building app prototypes with SwiftUI, and now it’s owned by Apple

Due to the Digital Markets Act (DMA) in the EU, certain tech companies are required to disclose acquisitions to the European Commission.

Those acquisitions are then publicized on this webpage.

And the latest addition, as spotted by MacRumors, is for Rabbit 3 Times along with its Play app.

From the listing, Apple “will acquire certain assets from and have the right to offer employment to and hire certain employees of Rabbit 3 Times, Inc. d/b/a Play.”

Last year, the Apple Design Awards made Play its winner for ‘Innovation.’ Here’s what it wrote:

Play is a sophisticated yet accessible tool that lets users build interactive prototypes with SwiftUI frameworks. Its thoughtfully crafted user interface is both powerful and easy to navigate, helping designers create interactive prototypes and collaborate across Mac and iPhone, all synced in real time for seamless creativity.

Since the acquisition, Play has been removed from the App Store.

Perhaps the company will integrate its feature set into Xcode, or re-launch Play as a new standalone app. Either way, it’s likely we’ll see Play tools added to Apple’s free developer resources over time.

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