Apple Watch is the perfect device for busy people. It’s small, it’s simple to use, and it gives you all the information you need at a glance. And, with the right apps installed, you can do a lot more than just tell time.
We’ve compiled a list of the best apps for your Apple Watch so that you can get the most out of your device. They are: (list goes here)
Table of Contents
Best Apps For Your Apple Watch
Best new Apple Watch app: Fantastical Calendar
- Fantastical Calendar
- Free / in-app purchases
We’ve been using Fantastical from the very first version and it’s an excellent alternative to Apple’s own Calendar app. As the app has evolved it’s become more focused on power users, and while the core app is free the subscription version is where all the important features are being added. Subscriptions are currently $4.99 / £4.99 / AU$7.99 a month.
As before, the Apple Watch part of the app is simple and useful: you can install it as various kinds of Complications on multiple watch faces, and as a rule of thumb if you can put a Calendar complication there you can put a Fantastical one there instead. If you’re a subscriber it also includes a little icon to show the weather forecast for appointments in the next week.
Although there are no obvious changes to the Watch app, the core iPhone app introduced multiple new features in version 3.6: Fantastical Openings, which enables you to share your schedule so others can request meetings for times when you aren’t already booked; Fantastical Proposals, to get feedback from multiple colleagues; a new Quarter View for long-term planning, and a whole bunch of bug fixes too.
If you’re looking for an app that combines Calendar and Reminders in a single app and that also has lots of features for power users, Fantastical is an excellent time manager.
Best Apple Watch apps for fitness and health
There’s no denying that the main thrust of the Apple Watch since the second model is for fitness: it’s packing GPS, heart rate, water resistance and improved sensors to make the most of the fact people like to work out with this thing – it even connects to gym equipment.
This list of Apple Watch fitness, running, wellbeing and health apps are nearly all must-have – if you’re going to do one thing with your new Watch, use it to become a healthier you in mind and body.
Water tracker – Waterful
- Water tracker – Waterful
- Free / IAPs
One of the things the Apple Watch is really good for is tracking little things, the kind of things you probably wouldn’t reach for your phone to record. For example, its automated workout detection means we record fitness data we wouldn’t otherwise think about. It’s the same with things like hydration: we really can’t be bothered picking up our phone to track every single bottle of water or cup of coffee, but we’re happy to quickly tap our Apple Watch while we sip.
Waterful isn’t the only hydration tracker on the App Store, but it’s one of the friendliest: we particularly like the main display, which uses a nice design to show you exactly what you’ve been filling yourself up with and how well you’re doing against your daily hydration target.
It integrates with the Health app and Siri Shortcuts, and it’s also available as complications for compatible Watch faces, so for example you can have a circular dial in the center or a percentage and total in a larger complication.
The core app is free to try and subscription-based if you decide to stick with it; you can pay monthly at $0.99 / £0.99 / AU$1.49 per month, but a lifetime subscription is only $9.99 / £8.99 / AU$14.99.
Thirstic: Smart Water Tracker
- Thirstic
- $7.99 / £7.49 / AU$12.49 per year
There are many water intake trackers on the App Store, but Thirstic – ahem – drinks differently. That’s because it learns the patterns of your life and monitors the weather conditions to calculate a daily dynamic water intake goal.
So if you go to the gym on a Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, Thirstic will learn that and adjust your hydration targets and notification frequency accordingly; if the days get hotter, Thirstic will take that into account too.
It’s a clever idea, and there’s some more good thinking on show here: the app doesn’t send your data to remote servers, but uses your Watch’s integration with the Health app on your phone instead. You can also fine tune the parameters to suit your own preferences, so for example you can disable the weather forecast integration or make the activity sensing more or less sensitive.
There are no ads, and the interface is simple, straightforward, and most importantly of all, fast and easy to use. There’s also a good selection of charts and data when you open up the iPhone app. Thirstic is free to try and then you can choose between a monthly, annual or lifetime subscription. At the time of writing, an annual subscription is $7.99 / £7.49 / AU$12.49.
Tempo: Run & Walk Fitness Log
- Tempo: Run & Walk Fitness Log
- Free / IAPs
Tempo is popular with runners and walkers thanks to its intelligent analysis and excellent Apple Watch integration: it can get data from any fitness tracking app that logs data to Apple’s Health app, and then provide analysis of your performance. We’re pleased to see that the app also works for wheelchair users.
Earlier this year the app added Personal Bests to show you your fastest times, and in the latest update Tempo has added Goals. Goals enable you to set a distance goal, and that goal can be for a single workout or for multiple ones.Advertisement
So for example if you’d like to follow the lead of The Proclaimers to walk 500 miles and then walk 500 more, you can set that goal in Tempo and it’ll track your progress even if you use other apps to monitor your walk or run in real time.
The app enables you to tag your workouts in all kinds of ways: you can even see if a particular pair of running shoes have affected your performance. You can also add Tempo calculations to many of your Apple Watch faces so you can see your progress.
Like most fitness tracking apps Tempo is subscription-based, but unlike many there isn’t a confusing range of options: there’s a single subscription plan of $9.99 / £9.49 / AU$15.99 per month.
Arm Speed Analyzer
- Arm Speed Analyzer
- Free / in-app purchases
How fast is your arm? If you play ball or racket sports, if you’re a golfer, a frisbee fan or a hockey player, Arm Speed Analyzer can tell you how fast you can move and how quickly you accelerate. That means you can use it for golf swings and tennis serves, baseball or cricket pitching, frisbee throwing, hockey stick swinging, or anything else that involves speedy throwing, swinging, sweeping or hitting.
Arm Speed Analyzer claims to be the most accurate speed tracking app that uses your Apple Watch’s accelerometer to track speed and acceleration.
Using the app is fast and simple. It shows you four key pieces of information: your real time speed and acceleration, your most recent speed and acceleration, your personal best top speed and your previous session’s top speed. The app also records your history so you can go back and see how much you’ve improved over time and how consistent your speeds have become.
Although the app is called Arm Speed Analyzer, it can also analyse your kicks – although we wouldn’t recommend doing it publicly in case someone thinks the Apple Watch strapped to your ankle is an electronic tag for offenders.
Watch to 5K
- Watch to 5K
- $2.99 / £2.99 / AU$4.49
If lockdown has got you thinking about fitness, Couch to 5K is a great way to get into shape – and if you’re thinking about Couch to 5K, then Watch to 5K is a great way of tracking it. The app is designed for absolute beginners who want to work towards running a 5K over a period of 9 weeks, and it creates a training plan of three runs per week for nine weeks.
The schedule will be different for every week, and if you complete all nine weeks you should be able to achieve 5K in under 30 minutes.Advertisement
The app can work on its own, which is one of the reasons its creator made it: he was fed up with 5K training apps that needed you to lug your iPhone along for the run. So he wrote one that didn’t. It provides key metrics such as your distance traveled, your average pace, your calories burnt, and your heart rate, and all the details of your workouts are stored in Apple’s Health app.
As you’d expect your runs are tracked and count towards your goals in the Fitness app, and you can record your route to review it later. We like this app a lot: it’s a simple, useful, and effective app from an independent developer who spotted a problem and wrote an app to solve it.
Time to Walk
- Free with Apple Fitness Plus
Time to Walk is a new and really rather inspired idea for Apple Fitness Plus subscribers: it enables you to go for a long walk while listening to a notable figure tell their story. As Apple puts it:
“Each Time to Walk episode is shaped by the guest’s personal, life-shaping moments and includes lessons learned, meaningful memories, thoughts on purpose and gratitude, moments of levity, and other thought-provoking topics, recorded while walking outside or in locations that are meaningful to them. The narrative comes to life through photos that appear on Apple Watch, perfectly timed to amplify a corresponding moment the guest shares.”
If you’re a wheelchair user, Time to Walk will become Time to Push and will automatically start an Outdoor Wheelchair Walk Pace workout.
There are four guests at the time of writing: the legendary Dolly Parton, NBA star Draymond Green, musician Shawn Mendes and Orange Is The New Black star Uzo Aduba.Advertisement
There will be new episodes every Monday until the end of April 2021, and they will be downloaded automatically if you have a Fitness Plus subscription, appearing automatically in the Workout tab on your Apple Watch Fitness app. Each episode will be 25 to 40 minutes long and will come with a music playlist to keep you walking or pushing afterwards.
best free apps for apple watch
The Apple Watch may be Apple’s most personal device, but to truly make it yours you’ll need to start adding some of your favorite apps. But don’t worry if you’ve spent the last of your wearable budget on the watch itself—there are plenty of great apps to be had for free. So put away the credit card and check out our 10 favorite free Apple Watch apps.
Chirp
Ever since Twitter pulled its app from the Apple Watch, there’s been a missing link between our timelines and our wrists. Chirp restores the connection. A simple interface lets you browse your timeline, scan your mentions, and catch up on the latest trends, and with a quick tap you can like or retweet anything you see. Heavy Twitter users can donate a couple bucks to unlock the pro version, which adds direct posting, DMs, and lists, but if you’re just looking for a way to stay in touch with your feed, the free Chirp app needs to be on your Watch.
Cheatsheet
Apple Watch is a perfect device for things you need to remember, but Apple still doesn’t bundle an app that collects them all for easy viewing. That’s why Cheatsheet is such an indispensable app. The free utility is as simple as it gets, but it’s all you need: You can add, edit and delete up to three “cheats” right on your wrist, along with a complication that will display your most pressing bit of text on supported faces. (If you want more than three at a time, you can pay $2.99 to unlock the full version.) You won’t get the encryption and security of an app like 1Password, but for quick access to short notes, Cheatsheet is indispensable.
Sleep++
One of the few things our Apple Watch can’t do on its own is track our sleep patterns. With the Sleep++ app on your Apple Watch, you can. Just keep your watch strapped to your wrist while in bed, and the app will analyze the different patterns and phases of your sleep to tell you the length and quality of your sleep. But the killer feature is automatic sleep detection. By using the watch’s health monitoring tools, Sleep++ will kick in the moment you fall asleep and turn off when you wake up. The only thing you have to remember to do is make sure your Apple Watch has enough power to make it through the night.
theScore
If you’re a sports fan, the Apple Watch is a great device for keeping up to date on the latest news and scores. And theScore app is our favorite way to do it. Totally free and completely customizable, the app will keep you up to date with news and score for all of your favorite teams, whether you follow the pros or amateurs. You’ll be able to see in-game action, plays, and of course, score updates as games are going on, as well as check out upcoming games right on your wrist. if you can’t be in front of the TV, it’s the next best thing.
Night Sky
Stargazers already know how awesome Night Sky is on their iPhones, but surprisingly it’s just as good on the small screen as it is on the big one. You’ll not only get notifications of celestial events, you’ll be able to point your wrist at the sky to see which constellations and planets are above you wherever you are. And when you lower your wrist, the app will switch to a Celestial Compass that gives you a 360-degree overview of the entire sky. There’s even a complication that will let you know when the International Space Station is flying overhead.
Shazam
Now that Apple owns Shazam, baked-in Apple Watch support is surely on tap for a future update, but until it arrives, the Shazam app for Apple Watch is a must-download. Simple, speedy, and super convenient, the Shazam app on your wrist distills the service down to its most valuable asset: song identification. Launch the app and you’ll be able to quickly tap to see what song you’re hearing. You can also see a list of your recent song matches and let you listen to a preview, in case you’ve forgotten how it goes.
PCalc Lite
There’s one thing Apple Watch doesn’t have that the smart watches of the 80s did: a calculator. While we’re never understand why Apple didn’t build a rudimentary calculator app for the wrist, but the folks behind PCalc make it a non-issue. And you don’t have to buy the pro version to enjoy it. With the free PCalc Lite, you’ll be able to do basic calculations on your wrist, including a handy tip calculator. And you can even scribble and speak your formulas if the number pad is too tiny for your fingers.
Notebook
Another app Apple doesn’t load on new watches is Notes. And while Siri won’t help, Notebook will. In addition to the fantastic iPhone and iPad app, you’ll also get a full-featured Apple Watch app that lets you write, record, and view recent notes with ease. You’ll even be able to see any pics you added to notes on your iPhone. Syncing is nearly instantaneous in both directions, audio notes are fully playable on your iPhone, and you’ll be able to delete notes right from your wrist. It’s the next best thing to Notes.
Map My Run
The Apple Watch does a fine job on its own of tracking our exercise, but if you want to take your workout to the next level, Map My Run by Under Armor is the way to go. You’ll be able to track your duration, distance and steps, as well as your heart rate, anaerobic levels, and recent run history. And if you have a pair of UA Record Equipped connected shoes, it’ll even start recording your run the moment your feet touch the ground.
Conclusion
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