Hank Green’s Focus Friend is Google Play’s app of the year

Focus Friend, the surface clip adjunct from YouTuber and entrepreneur Hank Green, is Google Play’s app of the year.

Launched successful August, the productivity instrumentality lets you artifact yourself from distracting telephone apps portion encouraging you with the assistance of a virtual person — a small cartoon legume that likes to knit socks and scarves, which tin aboriginal beryllium exchanged for décor for the small bean’s room.

The premise down the app is that users mightiness beryllium encouraged to negociate their surface clip amended if they cognize their actions would interaction others, adjacent if it’s conscionable a small legume who would beryllium bittersweet if you interrupted their knitting project.

The app was a deed astatine launch, reaching No. 1 connected Apple’s App Store aft rapidly climbing the charts. On Android, Focus Friend has northbound of 1 cardinal installs, according to its Play Store listing.

Google calls Focus Friend a adjuvant and cute app and an effectual instrumentality for helping users disconnect.

In a twelvemonth that again saw AI assistants and tools ascent the app store charts implicit and implicit again, it’s absorbing to spot a timer that helps you disconnect from your tech winning Google’s highest app award. On Google Play, for instance, the apical apps presently see some of OpenAI’s consumer-facing tools: ChatGPT (at No. 1), and video app Sora. Other apical apps absorption connected societal media, amusement oregon shopping, similar TikTok, WhatsApp, Instagram, Temu and GoWish.

Clearly, consumers are rewarding apps that prosecute and addict, not those that promote you to log off.

Google besides announced respective different app winners crossed categories similar games, watches, XR headsets and more. Trading paper game, Pokémon TCG Pocket won the champion crippled award, the champion multi-device app was photograph exertion Luminar, and the champion multi-device crippled was racing crippled Disney Speedstorm.

Other winners for 2025 include:

Best Apps

• Best for Fun: Edits, an Instagram app
• Best for Personal Growth: Focus Friend by Hank Green
• Best Everyday Essential: Wiser – 15 Minute Audio Books
• Best Hidden Gem: Pingo AI Language Learning
• Best for Families: ABCmouse 2: Kids Learning Game
• Best for Watches: SleepisolBio: sleep, alarm
• Best for Large Screens: Goodnotes: Notes, docs, PDF
• Best for Cars: SoundCloud: The Music You Love
• Best for XR Headsets: Calm – Sleep, Meditate, Relax

Best Games

• Best Multiplayer: Dunk City Dynasty
• Best Pick Up & Play: Candy Crush Solitaire
• Best Indie: Chants of Sennaar
• Best Story: Disco Elysium
• Best Ongoing: Wuthering Waves
• Best connected Play Pass: DREDGE
• Best for Google Play Games connected PC: Odin: Valhalla Rising