Every year the editors at Macworld sit down and decide what have been the finest products of the past 12 months. From the areas of professional creativity, through to top consumer products – and, of course, Apple’s own offerings – we honour the best and brightest to have graced our offices over the past year.

Last night the Macworld Awards brought together the cream of the computer industry for a prestigious awards ceremony. Here’s what we found particularly pleasurable this year…

Apple product of the year

[WINNER] App Store - Apple
"Apple’s App Store is a gateway to a world of powerful third-party applications that make the iPhone the phone to own"
[NOMINEES] iPod touch 2G, iPhone 3G, MacBook, MacBook Pro
[SPONSORED BY] Parallels

Consumer photo product of the year

[WINNER] Pixma IP4600 – Canon
"Canon’s Pixma IP4600 is ideal for all digital photography fans, printing photos with breath-taking quality"
[NOMINEES] Photosmart D5460 – HP, Coolpix P80 – Nikon, Pentax K-m – Pentax, CyberShot H50 - Sony

Best pro photo and print imaging

[WINNER] Nikon D3 – Nikon
"With blisteringly fast captures and incredible results in near darkness, the D3 is capable of stunning results"
[NOMINEES] EOS 450D – Canon, Stylus PX800FW – Epson, PIXMA Pro9500 Mark II – Canon, Lumix DMC-G1 - Panasonic

Best iPod accessory

[WINNER] Shure SE210 – Shure
"The Shure SE 210s are excellent entry-level earphones that offer high quality sound with noise cancellation"
[NOMINEES] HardSkin for iPod nano - Contour Design, Gear4 Duo - Gear4, c-Jays – Jays, Powertraveller soundtraveller K3000ST - Powertraveller
[SPONSORED BY] Scosche

Best iPhone accessory

[WINNER] hf2 Custom•Fit – Etymotic
"The hf2 is a phenomenal set of iPhone-ready earphones that deliver the kind of sound reproduction you could pay a lot more for. Add custom fit, personalised earbuds these will truly be the best earphones you can own"
[NOMINEES] AirCurve - Griffin Technology, iOPlay – iO, i-Station 25 - Logic3, JuicePack - Mophie UK
[SPONSORED BY] XtremeMac

Consumer audio product

[WINNER] Valve80 - Logic3
"Logic 3’s Valve80 sound is warm and loud, and the neat and stylish package looks fantastic"
[NOMINEES] SoundSticks II - Harman Kardon, T12 – Orbitsound, Evoke Flow – PURE, Luna Voyager - XtremeMac

Best iPhone/iPod touch application

[WINNER] ConcertVault - Wolfgang's Vault
"ConcertVault from Wolfgang’s Vault gives you free access to the world's largest collection of live concert recordings right in your pocket"
[NOMINEES] Tweetie – Atebits, Google Earth – Google, OmniFocus – OmniGroup, Truphone for iPhone - Truphone

Best iPhone/iPod touch game

[WINNER] Zen Bound – Chillingo
"Zen Bound makes fantastic use of the iPhone controls, plenty of challenge and variety ensure you won't get bored in a hurry, great visuals and audio"
[NOMINEES] Days of Thunder – Freeverse, Real Football 2009 – Gameloft, Rolando – ngmoco, Warfare Inc - spiffcode

Best consumer software

[WINNER] Toast 10 Titanium – Roxio
"Burn music, video, photo and data files, and covert video for exporting to the iPhone with Roxio Toast 10 Titanium"
[NOMINEES] Photoshop Elements 6 – Adobe, Bento 2 – FileMaker, Voila - Global Delight, TuneRanger - Smith Micro
[SPONSORED BY] Elgato

Consumer hardware product of the year

[WINNER] Eye TV DTT Deluxe – Elgato
"With its super-slimline design Elgato’s DTT Deluxe is ideal for laptop users, giving you a truly portable TV"
[NOMINEES] Myvu Crystal – Myvu, Linear PCM – Olympus, HDR-TG3 – Sony, WD TV - Western Digital
[SPONSORED BY] Wenger

Education product of the year

[WINNER] MacSpeech Dictate – MacSpeech
"If you can’t type, or have RSI problems, this program is a must-have; if you type slowly, MacSpeech Dictate will be a boon to your productivity"
[NOMINEES] ConceptDraw MINDMAP Pro 5.5 - CS Odessa, TechTool Pro 5 – Micromat, MindManager 8 – Mindjet, ContentBarrier x5 - Intego
[SPONSORED BY] Bento

Best professional storage

[WINNER] Data Tank 3.5in – Freecom
"Freecom’s Data Tank provides useful instant backup and encryption options"
[NOMINEES] SpyderHUB – Firmtek, G-RAID3 - G-Tech, Iomega UltraMax Plus – Iomega, TS-509 Pro Turbo NAS - QNAP Systems

Best productivity hardware

[WINNER] Phaser 8560DN – Xerox
"Xerox’s Phaser 8560DN is a good solid-ink performer, which leans heavily on its green credentials"
[NOMINEES] N1 Vision – Belkin, DSL-2740B - D-Link, SlimBlade Media Mouse – Kensington, C544dn – Lexmark

Best productivity software

[WINNER] FileMaker Pro 10 - Filemaker Pro 10 "The value of just the interface and ease of use enhancements, make FileMaker Pro 10 a must-have upgrade for any FileMaker Pro user"
[NOMINEES] Business Accountz Enterprise – Accountz, Parallels Desktop 4 – Parallels, StuffIt Deluxe 2009 - Smith Micro, VMware Fusion 2 - VMware

Best consumer storage

[WINNER] Drobo 800 - Data Robotics
"The new Drobo from Data Robotics costs the same as the old one. To have this much more speed for essentially the same cost is a solid deal"
[NOMINEES] Buffalo LinkStation Mini – Buffalo, LaCie Little Disk – LaCie, FreeAgent Go for Mac – Seagate, MyBook Studio Edition II - Western Digital

Professional video product of the year

[WINNER] DeckLink HD Extreme - Blackmagic Design
"This more powerful version of BlackMagic’s Decklink HD Extreme lets you edit at 2K resolution - suitable for feature film production. It's an affordable way for video professionals to work at the highest levels of post-production"
[NOMINEES] Adobe Premiere CS4 – Adobe, MediaComposer 3.5 – Avid, HF100 – Canon, Matrox MX02 - Matrox

Best animation and 3D product

[WINNER] Cinema 4D 11 – Maxon
"Cinema 4D 11 is a brilliant upgrade, we doubt that there's an easier-to-use, better-integrated and feature-rich 3D toolset out there"
[NOMINEES] ImageModeler 2009 – Autodesk, Maya 2009 – Autodesk, Boris Continuum Complete 6 - Boris FX, Carrara 7 Pro - Daz3D

Creative hardware product of the year

[WINNER] Intuos4 – Wacom
"The Wacom Intuos4 really is a giant step in pen tablet technology with its wonderfully responsive new pen and comprehensive software drivers"
[NOMINEES] Spyder3Elite – Datacolor, Eizo CG241W – Eizo, MX Air – Logitech, MultiSync LCD2690WUXi – NEC, ColorMunki - X-Rite
[SPONSORED BY] Adobe

Creative design software of the year

[WINNER] Photoshop CS4 – Adobe
"All of the changes in Adobe Photoshop CS4 add up to a friendlier, more accessible interface with increasingly helpful tools"
[NOMINEES] Aperture 2 – Apple, Universal Type Server – Extensis, QuarkXPress 8 – Quark, Manga Studio 4 - Smith Micro

Creative web software of the year

[WINNER] Adobe Air – Adobe
"Adobe AIR has come a long way in a short time, and the momentum among third-party developers and the AIR community at large is encouraging"
[NOMINEES] Adobe Flash CS4 – Adobe, BBEdit 9 - Bare Bones, Microsoft Silverlight – Microsoft, LittleSnapper - Realmac Software

Grand Prix Award

For this award the Macworld team took all the winners and picked the most innovative, original and exciting product of the past 12 months... and the winner was Photoshop CS4.

[WINNER] Photoshop CS4 – Adobe
[SPONSORED BY] Goldgenie

Readers choice awards

It’s always interesting to compare our thoughts with those of the Mac faithful, so we asked what you thought were the best products of the year. The products with the highest number of votes in each category were put up for nomination, and the product with the highest number of votes overall was declared the winner at the glittering Macworld Awards ceremony.

Best hardware

[WINNER] My Book Studio Edition II - Western Digital
[NOMINEES] 450D – Canon, Drobo - Data Robotics, EyeTV DTT deluxe – Elgato, D2 Quadra – LaCie, D700 – Nikon

Best software

[WINNER] Photoshop CS4 - Adobe
[NOMINEES] Bento 2 – FileMaker, ConceptDraw MINDMAP – CS Odessa, LittleSnapper – RealMac, Parallels Desktop 4 – Parallels, Voila - Global Delight

Best reseller

[WINNER] Cancom
[NOMINEES] Computer Warehouse, Micro Anvika, Solutions Inc, MacWarehouse, Square Group
[SPONSORED BY] Ingram Micro

Best Mac-friendly ISP

[WINNER] MacAce
[NOMINEES] Sky Broadband, Talk TalK, O2, Virgin Media, Zen Internet