Traditionally, Google announces the winners of the annual Google Play Awards during I/O, but this year it made the list public a day before. The 2018 Google Play Award winners have been announced, and Indian e-commerce site Flipkart has been awarded as the Standout Build for Billions Experience award. Flipkart wins the first position, beating nominees like CricBuzz, Moovit, Mercado Libre, and Viki. Other popular apps that got awarded include Khan Academy which got the award for Best Social Impact, and Simple Habit which got the award for Standout Well-Being App.
Noteworthy winners in the Google Play Awards for 2018 include Be My Eyes for the Best Accessibility Experience and Canva for the Standout Startup. This year's awards had many new categories, while several traditional categories were missing. For example, there were no separate awards for AR and VR, and categories for Android Wear, Android TV, Best Multiplayer Game, and Best App for Kids were missing completely.
You can see the full list of winners of the Google Play Awards for 2018 are listed below:
Best Accessibility Experience- Be My Eyes
Best AR or VR Experience- BBC Earth: Life in VR
Standout Startup- Canva
Best Breakthrough Hit- Empires and Puzzles
Best Community Building Game- Episode
Standout Build for Billions Experience- Flipkart
Best Social Impact- Khan Academy
Standout Indie- Old Man's Journey
Standout Well-Being App- Simple Habit
Among all the apps, only Old Man's journey app is a paid app, while all the others are free to download with in-app purchases. Google I/O developer conference will go on from May 8 to May 10, and the keynote is set to begin at 10am PDT (10:30pm IST). Announcements around Android P, Android Auto, Google Home, and Google Assistant are expected.
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