Angry Birds and Facebook were the winners at last night's Appy Awards in London. More than 30,000 people voted for 50 applications nominated across 10 categories. The winner, Angry Birds has been one of the biggest selling games of the year and it has been released on almost every platform on the market from the iPad to Android smart phones.

Facebook won best time waster app and Spotify landed the best music application, with Google maps taking the best time saver award.

Oona Hilkamo, who works for Rovio, the company behind Angry Birds said “It's been just amazing. First of all winning the public vote for best game and then afterwards the judges decided for us to be app of the year. It's been a great year for us.”

Applications are a growing market, with over 350,000 available for Apple devices, 200,000 now available for Android, and 65,000 for Nokia with Windows trailing with only 10,000.

More than 10 billion apps have been downloaded from Apples App Store in just 18 months with the technology giant paying out over £1.2 billion to developers. It is a thriving market and one in which developers can make a huge amount of money, if the timing and program are right for the market.

Benn Wood an Analyst from CCS says “I think the app business has still got lots of growth in it. Obviously Apple are kings of the hill but there are lots of other phones where people still want apps. So the opportunities are only limited by your imagination, if you've got a great idea you can make an app and get it out to people.”

Appy Award winners

• Best Game: Angry Birds
• Best Fashion: eBay Fashion
• Best Lifestyle: Amazon
• Best Money Saving: Skype
• Best Music: Spotify
• Best Photography: Adobe Photoshop
• Best Sport: Sky Sports News
• Best Time Saver: Google Maps
• Best Time Waster: Facebook
• Best Travel: Trip Advisor
• App of the Year: Angry Birds

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