Ars Technica has announced that they will be holding the first ever Ars Design awards. When Apple announced WWDC 2010 it was revealed that they would only be giving out awards to iPhone and iPad apps this year. The folks at Ars Technica decided to hold their own awards that will honor exceptionally designed Mac OS X software.

From the announcement:

We are giving you, our readers, the opportunity to nominate your favorite Mac OS X applications to receive an award in one of five categories: Best New App, Best User Experience, Most Innovative App, Best K-12 Education App, and Best Student-created App. We will accept nominations until Friday, May 21. At that time, we’ll tally the top five nominations in each category, and the Ars staff will choose from among these a winner for each award. We’ll also collect the top ten apps among all categories receiving the most nominations, and put those ten apps to a vote for a special Reader’s Choice award.

Ars also notes that they will be awarding Windows and Linux applications at a later date.

I’m incredibly happy to see this announcement. I’ve never been a big follower of the ADAs but I clearly see it as an important part of the developer ecosystem. Apple my be preoccupied with iPhone OS, but I’m certainly glad Ars Technica was willing to swoop in and pick up the slack.