Have you bought yourself a new Apple Watch? If so, you must have a selection of handy watch apps that will enhance your user experience for the optimal, highest level of quality use.
To make it easier for you, we’ve catalogued a carefully curated inventory containing the leading watch apps available on your device that will perfect your engagement – but equally clarifies why Apple’s watch apps are positively unique to others.
Make it yours
What makes your Apple Watch stand out? Well, your choice of watch apps offered by Apple, is entirely specific and catered to you. View Apps scrolling through options on both your wrist or on your iPhone. The Apple Watch offers an abundance of fun and handy watch apps to increase productivity in any circumstance.
We know what you’re thinking. Apple contains a countless amount of Apple Watch apps, free and targeted towards activities of all calibers. Though you are free to choose at your own will, we’re providing you with an extensively researched presentation of some of the best Apple Watch apps.
We came to these conclusions based on several statistics and features, including but not limited to: direct user ratings, our own personal experiences of the watch apps, and documented efficiency. In short – we’re here to make your daily activities a little easier for maximum enjoyment of your Smartwatch.
Watch apps for Fitness
Runtastic
Free but offers in-app purchases
Adidas has its own running app, Runtastic. And it stands out on all smartwatch devices because it has a unique interface. The layout of the watch app is clean-cut, sensible for regular use and visually satisfactory!
A split-screen is provided: one will display the essential statistics for your exercising akin to other apps (heart rate, pulse, pace, mileage etc.), and the second display screen is directly linked to your music characteristics; which will instantly allow you to skip and start tunes whilst on a run. It might sound like a hassle to have two screens at your use, filled with information. The great news is, you can customize your screen for preferred visible traits. If your priority is mileage, you can make this the central focus of your workout by making it appear on one screen in isolation.
Voice coach
Like other fitness apps, Runtastic does contain features like voice coaching to help you maximize your fitness output. However, if you want to go the extra mile (literally or figuratively), you can dare yourself to take on workout challenges of your liking. These are available upon both the first download of Runtastic and at any point during your use of the watch app.
Runtastic has a premium package (priced at $9.99 per month) which means you can gain access to six training packages that only push you further to fitness success.
Watch Apps for Health and Mental Wellbeing
MyFitnessPal
Free but offers in-app purchases
Are you a careful, safe calorie counter? MyFitnessPal will be for you – as it stands, the app is known as one of the better apps for dealing with calorie counting and measuring your daily food intake for future weight loss achievements.
Not only does this app track your calories, but it also takes into consideration daily fundamental physical activities that all contribute to an assessment of your health – located with simple access on your wrist.
Unlike many watch apps, MyFitnessPal is uniquely simple and versatile in its visual appearance. It’s quick and simple to use – displaying the basics for you at less than arm’s length; step counts, calorie counts, and nutritional assessments (you have to enter your food intake for this to be measured).
One of the best features is that it is capable of scanning your food and identifying and match food with its nutritional information. All you have to do is use your phone camera to take photos of what you eat! The only drawback here is that this is a premium feature that requires a subscription.
However, it doesn’t function only to be good looking. The watch app is great for new and former users on a smartwatch to adapt to an intuitive method of checking whether you have enough calories remaining to indulge in your favorite dessert.
Lifesum
Free but offers in-app purchases
Things can get tricky diet-wise: a lot of us require an exceptionally catered diet so that we may hold ourselves accountable when it comes to periods of temptation.
If you’re one of those people, Lifesum serves to provide nutrition tracking information to monitor your intake (upon logging meals). You can monitor your calories, macros, and are given a personable but honest review of your dietary progress concerning your ultimate goal.
Great advice
If you’re already a user of Lifesum on the iPhone, you’ll be glad to know that the smartwatch adaptation is incredibly similar to the phone version of the app. It will directly give dietary food ideas and plans based on your goals in various forms – even doing the honor of creating catered recipes with a schedule and motivating nod towards achieving your goal.
The smartwatch adaptation of the Lifesum app is exquisite – it has a brilliant display that imitates the Apple Activity app in many positive respects. You get the same stories of those who are on the same journey as you to be healthier and happier. Alongside a number of important features – Lifesum also accommodates you with some great information like the daily weather, so you can plan your workout periods and intake effectively.
Calm
Free but offers in-app purchases
Calm – used globally daily – is known for its uniqueness in putting you to sleep and keeping you serene through means of mini-sessions. If you regularly spend excessive periods on screen devices, this app is a fantastic medium to reduce your screen time and teach you to detox for your own benefit. Resources praise the app for its ability to do such.
How do you use the app? It’s easy, you simply pick your chosen 1-minute meditation classes, or you can take part in a longer 10-minute session that will totally change your morning and sleeping routines for the better. Alternatively, you can use the app’s methods at any point during your day to take a break from the sometimes intimidating pace of daily life.
User experience
Calm has a super serene and personable interface, which means meditating using the Apple Watch becomes more soothing.
On the smartwatch app, you get guided sessions which range from 3 up to 25 minutes in length. Choose your sessions from simple breathing to mindfulness. Whichever you pick will bring you into a much more tranquil state of mind. What’s more, Calm has programs, varying between 7 – 30 days, where you can get started on a specific course or continue a daily meditation practice.
Some of us wear our smartwatches to bed – which can be a great time to put Calm’s Sleep Stories feature to use. This will give you some exclusive, celebrity-narrated stories that gently lead you into a night of fantastic REM sleep for a refreshed morning.
Moodistory
$4.99/£4.99
It’s no surprise that the majority of the health and fitness-related Apple Watch apps are just trackers of some sort. Moodistory is also a tracker, but it’s more concerned with your emotional well-being than your physical health.
If you’re looking for a way to quickly record your mood and context, the Apple Watch accompanying app is a great option. However, if you’re looking for more thorough notes, the iPhone app is the better option. You may simply tap and go on your Watch.
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If you have mood swings, or if you want to better understand the patterns that shape your moods, mood monitoring can be a great tool.
Tracking how you feel over time can help you discover if there are any patterns, and if you include context, this information can help you determine any triggers that could bring you down or boost you up. Even if you don’t want to discuss your mood history with a counsellor or other certified expert, the iPhone app allows you to collect the information and export it in PDF form.
Thirstic
$7.99 / £7.49 annually
Do you drink enough water?
Thirstic – ahem – drinks differently than most of the water intake trackers available on the App Store. As a result, it is able to determine a daily dynamic water intake goal based on the patterns of your daily activities and the weather.
Consequently, if you go to the gym three times a week on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, Thirstic will learn about this and alter your hydration targets and notification frequency accordingly; if the days are hotter, Thirstic will take that into consideration as well.
In a clever move, the app doesn’t transfer your data to external servers, but instead leverages your Watch’s interaction with the Health app on your phone to track your health and fitness progress. For example, you can eliminate the weather forecast integration or set the activity detection more or less sensitive to your individual preferences.
You won’t see any adverts, and the layout is easy to understand and quick to navigate. When you open the iPhone app, you’ll find a wealth of graphs and statistics. You can test out Thirstic for free before making a decision on whether or not to continue using it on a monthly, yearly, or lifetime basis.
Watch Apps for Entertainment
Audible
Free but offers in-app purchases
The arrival of WatchOS 6 enabled the streaming of spoken audio via LTE. Yes – that means Audible audiobooks can be listened to via your smartwatch! Lots of us already love listening to audiobooks. If this is you, the great thing about the adapted version of the Audible watch app allows you to easily transfer existing audiobooks from other devices so that you can listen to them offline on your smartwatch, which isn’t a new thing.
The watch app will sync with the iPhone app to assume all of your existing functions, so your progress is not altered and you can move swiftly onto the next steps of your progress.
Audible does require you to purchase credits for books. Meaning you can’t download an unlimited number of books for free. Though, the option to store or stream audiobooks on the watch is a handy feature for access.
Apple Music
We’re all aware of the power that Apple Music heralds. So it’s no surprise Apple Music offers a brilliant listening experience. Apple Music is one of only a handful of streaming services that doesn’t come with a free trial. However, with a monthly subscription, you can listen to all your beloved tunes via the Apple Watch library. To do this, download your library to your Apple Watch and listen offline!
If you have the LTE version with a data plan, you can stream songs without the need to be close by to your iPhone. All you need is some Bluetooth headphones paired with the Watch, and you’re away!
Roku
Free
There is now an Apple Watch app that mirrors the iPhone version of the popular Roku media player, as well as Roku TVs and Roku streaming sticks.
Apps for the Roku Apple Watch look identical to their iPhone counterparts, albeit on a smaller screen, and can be used with either touch or speech. However, voice control is currently only available in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. If you lose a remote, you can set it to chime until you locate it, so you know where it is.
For voice control, channel switching and remote control, the Watch app does a great job with all three. With the iPhone app, you can search for specific titles, actresses, or directors, and stream video directly to your smartphone. You can also use the private listening feature, which prevents you from playing the audio in front of everyone else in the room.
To ensure that the latter feature works with your specific hardware, look through the compatibility notes before you buy.
Watch Apps for Sleep tracking
AutoSleep
Unfortunately, Apple doesn’t offer a widely celebrated sleep-tracking app. Though many of us do struggle with tracking our sleeping patterns – AutoSleep is the app for you. This watch app will automatically detect when you fall asleep and the time at which you awake. In the morning, when you check your smartwatch, it will give you a full report of your sleep based on time spent in bed, movement and heart rate.
AutoSleep still does its job when you don’t wear your Apple Watch to bed. However, the analysis will be less detailed because it’s based on your time spent not wearing the watch, rather than considering movement and heart rate data.
Sleep++
Free but offers in-app purchases
Like AutoSleep, Sleep++ will automatically detail your sleeping patterns and habits on a log that you can review the morning after. There is also a manual mode available that gives you reign over the nature in which the app tracks your rest — all you have to do is open the Sleep++ app and notify your system that you’re going to sleep. The watch app will then deliver a detailed report the following morning on the quality and length of your rest.
HealthKit
HealthKit is also integrated with Sleep++, which means that the detailed reports you are given about your sleep quality are the best they can be. You can even spread your details with other HealthKit-integrated apps to gain further commentary and reports about your sleeping activity, workouts and other health data – all in one place.
Sleep Tracker ++ is a totally automatic sleep-tracking app that even detects your day naps, a feature that most sleep-tracking apps (and activity bands that track sleep) don’t actually have at present.
If you’re someone who moves around often in their sleep, and you’re worried that this will interfere with how the app evaluates your sleeping – don’t worry. Sleep++ allows you to personally adjust the sensitivity of its sleep detection based on