One of the most pleasant surprises about this year's best new apps have nothing to do with AI.
While AI tools are a frothy area for big tech companies and venture capitalists, there's plenty of app innovation happening outside of that arena, in categories such as productivity, social media, and streaming music.
As in previous years, we define apps loosely to include not only mobile software, but desktop applications, browser extensions, and app-like websites. Along with apps that are entirely new, we also look for existing ones that received significant updates in the past year.