(Pocket-lint) - The Apple Watch has been around for a few years now and there are plenty of apps available for it, to say the least, especially now that it has its own app store. Of course, not all apps are great, useful, or even suitable for the Apple Watch, but there are a few that are absolutely great.
These are the best Apple Watch apps we've come across—ones that take their place on the smaller screen and deliver the information you need without having to take out your iPhone.
There's everything from games to productivity apps, all of which make the Apple Watch useful and not just another gadget.
- Which Apple Watch is right for you?
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Best Travel Apps for Apple Watch
British Airways
If you fly with British Airways a lot, it's very convenient to have your flight information at the airport on your wrist. The BA Apple Watch app will give you detailed information about the gate, whether the plane arrived on time and what the flight status is. It even tells you the weather at your destination.
Citymapper
Citymapper's approach to its Apple Watch app is to allow you to quickly see the status of nearby public transport with the press of a few buttons. It will also give you directions to your work address or any saved addresses you have previously set with your iPhone using available public transport from your location and you can also see departures in real time. Fast and easy.
Uber
The Uber app for Apple Watch is simple but effective. It doesn't offer as many features as your phone, such as fare estimates, but it does allow you to request an Uber from your wrist without touching your phone. It will tell you how long to wait for an Uber, switching between different car options.
Apple Maps
Apple Maps doesn't have the best reputation, but the app works well on the Apple Watch. You can ask Siri to guide you to a location using your watch, and the Apple Maps app will open, find the location, and give you the option to press Start. It will then give you turn-by-turn directions on your wrist, vibrating to alert you when the next turn is approaching. No iPhone required.
Elk
Elk is a good currency conversion app. It knows where you are and will automatically select the correct currency and starting value for you. You can then swipe left to increase values, swipe right to decrease them, or tap on a value for greater precision. There is a free version as well as a paid version with access to all currencies.
iTranslate
Another one for those who travel, or even for those just going on holiday. The iTranslate app will translate spoken words when the microphone is pressed into the language you request below. There are many languages available, and in our experience the translations are quite accurate. It will allow you to order beer or at least find out where the toilet is.
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Weather Live
What's better than viewing weather information right on your wrist? Probably nothing. The Weather Live program provides extensive functionality in this regard: the user can configure the display of eight weather information parameters on the watch screen. At the same time, visually “Weather Live” displays beautiful icons with the corresponding weather - sunny, cloudy, thunderstorm. One glance at the clock and you have already taken in the basic information - temperature and general weather. Additional screens contain other data: atmospheric pressure, humidity, visibility and a detailed forecast for the day.
Best Apple Watch apps for productivity
PCalc
If you remember and loved Casio's calculator watches, the PCalc app is a must-have app for the Apple Watch. As you might guess, this is a calculator on your wrist. It's beautiful and simple, allowing you to add, subtract, divide and multiply, and calculate percentages right from your wrist. There is a free Lite version, but the paid version includes paper tape, engineering and scientific notations, making it more useful than Apple's own calculator for the Apple Watch.
Note
Noted is an audio recording and notes app that lets you record directly from your Apple Watch. You can start recording with one touch, pause recording and add a timestamp. Time Tag is great for pinpointing the most interesting parts of a recording so you can quickly access it later on your iPhone.
Things 3
Things 3 is a paid organizer and reminder app with a beautiful design. You can add new tasks right from your wrist and check off the ones you've already completed. The app replicates the look and feel of the Apple Ring, showing how close you are to completing that day's tasks. This is a great app for those who like to stay organized.
Pacemaker
Pacemaker is a very simple DJ app that automatically creates music mixes from your iPhone, then allows you to add effects using four preset options on the watch. Effects include distorting the music, making it feel like it is underwater, and breaking up the music. It's simple but fun and when combined with a Bluetooth speaker makes things even more interesting.
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Spark
Why is it necessary?
▶ convenient email client
Developer:
Readdle Inc.
Category:
Performance
Spark has never let me down, unlike other email clients.
The first thing that is especially pleasing about it is the intelligent filter for incoming messages. It independently sorts and divides incoming mail into groups. It works extremely correctly and saves a lot of time.
Everything is fast, loading messages almost instantly. Even on the slow Rambler, messages from which I could wait for ages in other clients.
The watch has duplicated basic functions, including viewing mail, replying to messages, deleting and archiving.
For free
The best information about Apple Watch apps
Weather
There are plenty of apps you can download for the Apple Watch when it comes to weather, but we found Apple's native weather app to be quite adequate at providing quick and easy information on our wrist. For each location you set on iPhone, the Apple Watch weather app will show you the expected hourly forecast. It is easy to read, understand, and quickly access.
Carrot Weather
If you want a more immersive look at the weather, the Carrot Weather app for Apple Watch is amazing. It offers access to current, hourly and daily forecasts, but provides them with dialogue and characters, which makes things much more interesting. You can also turn off the personality if it becomes too much.
Dark Sky
Another weather app, but it's like magic. Dark Sky generates forecasts for your exact location, offering minute-by-minute forecasts for the next hour and hourly forecasts for the next day and week. It will literally tell you down to the minute if it's going to rain on you.
Find Near Me
The Find Near Me app lets you find a variety of amenities close to your wrist. The list is quite extensive: from ATMs and cafes to beauty salons and bookstores. Click on what you need to find and a list of results will appear on your hand, each of which you can then click on for more information and even directions.
Shazam
If you've used Shazam, you know how it works. You hear a track, fumble for your phone, and try to press play before the song ends. With the Shazam app for Apple Watch, you can simply swipe up on Glance, tap the listen button, and you'll be hooked before you know it.
Night Sky
Night Sky is a great app for identifying stars, planets, constellations and satellites in the night sky. Have you ever wondered what Orion's belt is? Just point your Apple Watch at the sky and it will guide you towards it, then you can explore the object in AR on your iPhone.
Onefootball
An essential app for football fans. Onefootball allows you to follow thousands of teams and hundreds of leagues and competitions around the world. You can select your favorite players, clubs, national teams and leagues to instantly get the data and results that matter to you as they happen.
ESPN
Another great app for the sports lover, the ESPN Apple Watch app gives you quick access to scores for football, cricket, F1, NBA, NFL, tennis, golf, MLB and more. Like Onefootball, you can personalize the app to receive notifications about your favorite teams and leagues.
Yelp
Yelp is a local guide that helps you find restaurants, bars, lounges, coffee shops, and more near you. You'll be able to see reviews, price range, hours of operation, and address right from your wrist. Ideal for new places.
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Lifeline…
The text adventure Lifeline is currently one of the most interesting and best games for the Apple Watch. In Lifeline, the player is the captain of a spaceship who receives a message from a passenger on another intergalactic ship, where he is the only survivor. The player will have to make important decisions for this passenger, for example, deciding in which part of the ship it is better for him to stay for the night, or what to do with the unusual thing that lives on the ship. The story for Lifeline was written by Dave Justas, a renowned comic book creator. It is worth noting that the game has been translated into Russian.
The Best Apple Watch Apps for Health and Fitness
Fiit
Fiit lets you stream hundreds of workouts, with options including HIIT, strength training, kettlebells, dumbbells, yoga, postpartum recovery and more. A membership subscription (£20 per month) gives you unlimited access to 10, 25 and 40 minute sessions with personal trainers whenever you want. Start a workout on your iPhone and you'll see your heart rate displayed on Apple Watch along with a leaderboard on the next screen.
Runkeeper
If you wear Apple Watch for fitness, download Runkeeper. This allows you to launch an app directly from your wrist without even looking at your iPhone. Open the application, click “launch” and go. Once you've started running, you can check a number of statistics, including total time, distance traveled and pace.
Strava
Strava is a great app and the Apple watch version is great. Like others, Strava allows you to start an activity from your wrist, such as outdoor riding or running, or indoor running. It will then suggest time, intervals, distance and heart rate on your wrist during your workout. All data is transferred to the iPhone app after your workout so you can see more detailed information.
Streaks Workout
The Streaks Workout app is excellent, offering 30 equipment-free exercises to choose from and four different workout lengths, including six minutes, 12 minutes, 18 minutes or 30 minutes. Apple Watch will show your heart rate on the display, along with your exercise, time, and your progress. Super easy to use, but expect some serious pain.
Gymaholic
The Gymaholic Workout Tracker uses AR to create an avatar, which you can then change to represent your gender. , height and body fat percentage. After training, the avatar will show all the muscles that you trained, and will also show which muscles are also ready for training. During your workout, you'll see various stats, including reps, weight, heart rate, and calories, next to your avatar. This is cool.
MapMyRun
MapMyRun is another good Apple Watch app for fitness enthusiasts. It lets you start running, cycling or walking without touching your iPhone. During your workout, you can see the duration, distance, and calories burned, and you can pause, end, save, or cancel your workout. The information is then displayed in the MapMyRun iPhone app.
Runtastic
Runtastic lets you track a variety of activities from running to cycling, view a brief history of your previous workouts, and keep an eye on your stats from your wrist. The app will track your workouts in real time using built-in GPS and will display time, distance, pace and heart rate during your workout. You can also manage your tracking settings directly from your Apple Watch.
Withings Health Mate
For those using the Withings ecosystem, the Withings Apple Watch app is great for providing quick statistics in a simple format. If you have the Withings activity and sleep tracker and one of its smart scales, the Apple Watch app will show you steps and distance, recorded sleep, and recorded weight. You can also view your activity and weight history without opening the app on your phone.
Seven
Seven is another workout app, and the Apple Watch version is great and simple. You can do everything on your wrist, just like on your phone. The Apple Watch app allows you to choose what seven-minute workout you want to do, whether it's a full body, upper body, core, lower body, or casual workout, depending on what workouts you've purchased or unlocked, and then you can simply click Start. An image of the exercise you need to complete will appear on the watch face in a countdown circle.
Hole19
Hole19 is an Apple Watch app for golfers. You'll need to run a round on your iPhone, and then the Watch will take the information and deliver it to you when you need it, such as distances and hole costs. The app also allows you to enter strokes and wrist strokes, which are then placed on a score card so you can see how you're doing in a quick and easy way.
Autosleep
Autosleep does exactly what it says on the tin—it automatically tracks your sleep when you wear your Apple Watch to bed. You don't need to press any button. Wear Apple Watch to bed and you'll receive a notification in the morning detailing how well you slept, including quality, average heart rate, and deep sleep. The app will also show your seven-day average.
One Drop
One Drop is a great app for people with diabetes. It allows you to log glucose, medications, food and activity right from your wrist, as well as view your daily goal progress and glucose range. You can also schedule medication reminders, and there's automatic carb counting.
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Runeblade
We already talked about this game on Trashbox. Runeblade is an RPG with an Apple Watch version. The gameplay in this role-playing game is simplified to the point of impossibility - there is only one button, which is responsible for hitting enemies. The character automatically moves around the map, where he encounters bosses and monsters. The game also has good graphics and quests. It's worth noting that Runeblade is completely free.
Best games for Apple Watch
Trivia Crack
No list of apps would be complete without a couple of games, and Trivia Crack is one of our favorites. This is a very basic version of Trivial Pursuit, but if you have some general knowledge, it's a great app to try. You compete against an online opponent and choose from six question categories. There are multiple answer options that you select from your wrist, and you don't even have to take out your iPhone to start playing.
Brainess
Courage is all about stimulating your brain and offers seven brain-training games you can play on your Apple Watch. Games include memorizing and clicking dice, choosing the correct number to complete a math equation, and matching pairs of identical cards. These seven games are believed to improve and train your memory, vision and computing skills. Whether they do it or not is a different story, but it's worth a try.
Rules
Rules is a puzzle game with really cute little animations. There are different levels including beginner, expert or timeless, and the game includes a daily brain training mini-game for Apple Watch.
Lifeline 2
Lifeline 2 is the successor to the original Lifeline, offering a new story of a young woman named Arika who is trying to avenge her parents. and save her long-lost brother. You will have to make choices to keep her alive and help her succeed.
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Workouts++
Once you've used the Workout app a few times, you'll see its limitations. There's no way to customize the stats screen and no way to look at performance graphs. Training++ is your answer.
The app has an efficiently designed workout screen that provides six statistics. You can add metrics that are interesting to you and leave others out.
My favorite part of using Workouts++ is the BPM chart. And since it supports Siri, you can say “start an indoor cycling workout in Workouts++” to jump straight to the workout screen.
Download: Workouts++ (free)
Best financial apps for Apple Watch
Wallet
Wallet is one of Apple's own apps, so you'd expect it to work well on the Apple Watch and It. Like the iPhone version, it provides easy access to boarding passes, tickets, and cards enrolled in Apple Pay. Having your boarding pass and tickets on your wrist means you don't have to worry about getting your phone out, which is always good when traveling, and you can also pay with your wrist.
Pennies
There are plenty of apps out there to help you stay on top of your finances, but we love the Pennies Apple Watch app, which lets you quickly see how much you've spent on a given budget right on your wrist. This means you can keep track of how much you have left, whether it's tracking your weekly food bill or, as we like to imagine, your champagne bar bill.
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Yandex.Taxi and Uber
Ordering a taxi has never been so convenient, because now everything can be done right on your wrist. The Russian service Yandex.Taxi already supports Apple smartwatches along with the foreign Uber, which so far operates only in Moscow. In both applications, the process of ordering a taxi is almost the same: the watch automatically detects the location of the user, who only needs to press one button and monitor notifications.
"Yandex.Taxi"
Uber
Best Apple Watch Apps for Smart Home
Philips Hue
The Philips Hue app is a simple remote control that allows you to have multiple lighting presets, which you can then control directly from your watch. You don't even have to lift your iPhone to turn on the light, let alone get off the couch.
IFTTT
IFTTT (If This Then That) is compatible with over 600 apps, from Twitter and Instagram to Nest and Hive. The Apple Watch app doesn't allow you to create new applets, like turning on the lights at sunset, but you can download various widgets through the main IFTTT iPhone app, and you can activate any of them through the Apple Watch app.
Neato
Do you have a Neato robot vacuum cleaner? The Neato Apple Watch app lets you start, stop, and clean. You can't force the Neato robot to return to its dock or anything from your wrist, so it's basic functionality, but it's still a useful app for quick cleaning.
Hive
The Hive Apple Watch app not only lets you control your Hive thermostat, but also controls any Hive lights or outlets other than the ones you have.
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Sleep++
Most sleep tracking apps require a subscription or in-app purchase to unlock the most advanced features. But Sleep++ is a completely free way to track your sleep. The app has both automatic and manual sleep tracking modes. For each night, you can view a report with data including sleep duration and sleep quality.
The app also shows sleep trends, such as how much sleep you're getting each night of the week, and progress towards your individual sleep goal.
In-app purchase removes all ads.
Download: Sleep++ (Free in-app purchases available)
Share translation with friends
Apple offers a quick way to share translations with friends and family. To share translated text, follow these steps:
Step 1: In the translated menu, just long press the translated text and you will see a menu pop up at the top.
Step 2: Then use the text selector to select all the text.
Step 3: Then tap on Share and the default menu for sending text will open.
Pedometer++
Apple's activity app focuses on calories burned rather than steps. But Apple Watch records your steps. If you go all the way down in the Activity app, you'll find the step count.
What if you want to know your step all the time? If you're trying to hit your daily 10,000 steps, Pedometer++ can help.
It's a simple utility that records your steps and presents them as a watch face complication. Add it to your favorite watch face
and then, along with the progress of your Activity, you will also be able to see your steps.
Download: Pedometer++ (Free)
Runkeeper
Strava's strict minimalism may not be for everyone. And maybe you're not looking for a community of runners and cyclists. Maybe you just want a feature-rich, reliable app to track your runs. This is what Runkeeper does best.
Download: Runkeeper (free, subscription available)
