Apple just acquired the app that won last year’s ‘Innovation’ Apple Design Award

Apple has acquired a variety of apps recently, and the latest—Play—won the 2025 Apple Design Award in the ‘Innovation’ category. Here’s what it does.

‘Play’ focused on building app prototypes with SwiftUI, and now it’s owned by Apple

Due to the Digital Markets Act (DMA) in the EU, certain tech companies are required to disclose acquisitions to the European Commission.

Those acquisitions are then publicized on this webpage.

And the latest addition, as spotted by MacRumors, is for Rabbit 3 Times along with its Play app.

From the listing, Apple “will acquire certain assets from and have the right to offer employment to and hire certain employees of Rabbit 3 Times, Inc. d/b/a Play.”

Last year, the Apple Design Awards made Play its winner for ‘Innovation.’ Here’s what it wrote:

Since the acquisition, Play has been removed from the App Store.

Perhaps the company will integrate its feature set into Xcode, or re-launch Play as a new standalone app. Either way, it’s likely we’ll see Play tools added to Apple’s free developer resources over time.

Have you previously heard of Play or used it? What do you expect Apple to do with the app? Let us know in the comments.

Best iPhone accessories ...