Hasta La Ideas

While most awards are given out in celebration of a person or firm’s work, thereby boosting their profile (and more subtly, often to increase the awards-givers notoriety as well), Apple has taken something of a new route by using it to help push developers into joining their still-relatively new sales outlet. For the company’s upcoming Apple Design Awards, a rule was put in place saying that, for Mac OS X (the operating system software used by Apple on desktops and laptops), only applications that are available in the company’s Mac App Store will be considered for an award. So if you’re designing software that only sits on the shelves at the Apple Store or Best Buy, or can be ordered online but not through the App Store, you’re out of luck if you were hoping to win an award. As Arts Technica puts it, this is better than last year when the company didn’t even have a category for products made for OS X, but it’s still a clever push to get developers to join in doing things the Apple way.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.