• by Steve Smith , Staff Writer @popeyesm, December 9, 2011

No one seems to know who really calls the editorial shots inside Apple. Who determines how apps get into those coveted featured slots, App or Game of the Week? All anyone knows for sure is that getting any kind of association with Apple, from a millisecond exposure in one of its iPhone or iPad ads, to a few days' rotation in the carousel of highlighted apps, is a quick path to popularity. And every year, whoever those folks are who make these calls pull together their Rewind look back at the best of the year.

The App Store just rolled out its Rewind awards in key mobile categories. For iPhone App of the Year, the honor went to photo editing sensation Instagram. The company leveraged cool photo tricks into a massive look-what-I-did social network of photo sharers. 

One app developer who has had success attracting Apple’s eye once told me that the otherwise inscrutable editors of iTunes do favor apps that make best use of the new and most advanced features of the iPhone or iPad. Including AirPlay in an app or tying the camera in to social features -- as  Instagram does -- is one way to their hearts.

Not surprisingly, then, VidRhythm -- whose video and musical remix model exercises a number of the Apple features across its hardware -- is a runner-up for App of the Year. The Band of the Day app, another runner-up, aids music discovery and song track purchases, no doubt.

The iPad App of the year similarly leverages image-making functions and underscores the Apple creativity ethos. Snapseed is an image editor that is both very well tuned to touch but also tied into social nets. A natural runner up is the djay song mixer, which leverages the iTunes song library. Again, music, creativity, interactivity, sociability and sales: the Apple love potion.

On the game side, the creativity meme continues with Tiny Tower coming in as iPhone Game of the Year. This deliberately blocky low-res builder game seems like a Lego Sims. This was an interesting pick, because it would have been easy to choose one of the top sellers like Tiny Wings, which uses touch mechanics and physics in a style common to many winning titles these days. Tiny Tower is as much an exercise in simplification, with an artful interface design.

But sometimes, even the kids at Apple HQ go for the eye candy. Dead Space is their iPad Game of the year. Yeah, it is scary. Its graphics are amazing. And it is an iOS exclusive. But Apple didn’t get where it is by cultivating its inner love of quality without some eye to marketing. So the Apple rationale for awarding the game top honors is because “it plays and looks like a full-blown console title.”

Next market victim?