Apple has been nominated among architects, car manufacturers and fashion designers for this year’s Brit Insurance Design Awards, hosted by the Design Museum. The iPad appears in the Product shortlist, alongside the Dyson Air Multiplier fan, Freecom’s CLS Mobile Drive, Ben de Lisi’s Universal Gown (designed for NHS patients) and Tommerup Kister’s Diamant Coffin, modelled on a cut diamond and resembling a stealth fighter.

Apple is no stranger to Design Museum awards: head of industrial design Jonathan Ive won the institution’s first Designer of the Year prize in 2003, and many of the company’s products have been exhibited. The iPad team can congratulate themselves not only on being recognised in their own right, but on having made possible several other nominees that might not have come to prominence without iOS devices. Wired magazine’s iPad edition is shortlisted in the Interactive category, as are innovative ‘social magazine’ Flipboard and interactive book

‘The iPad is not only nominated itself, but made possible several other nominees, including Flipboard and the Wired app’ The Elements, both iPad-based. Perhaps inevitably, Angry Birds also gets a nod.

One title probably not coming soon to the iPad is Andreas Pohancenik’s catalogue for the Design Criminals exhibition at Vienna’s MAK: the book’s unique selling point is that you can eat it.

In other awards news, the iPhone 4 was pronounced Best Mobile Device at Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona last month, even though Apple was the only major handset maker not to turn up. Angry Birds won two prizes at that event, too.