13 Apple Watch Apps To Help You Get The Most Out Of Your Smartwatch

The Apple Watch is made to fit smoothly into everyday life like a regular watch. However, thanks to the many apps you can download, this smartwatch does more than just tell time and show notifications. A good Watch app is designed to keep interactions simple and easy to read at a glance. However, while it is well known for its strong fitness and health tracking features, its real value as a flexible personal tool comes from adding third-party apps.

Good apps turn the smartwatch into a must-have device because they simplify different parts of your daily routine with quick checks. This saves time, energy, and even gives you peace of mind knowing that your watch is a reliable assistant. The best apps are built to give insight quickly or let you complete important actions right from your wrist, which will reduce the need to grab your paired iPhone or spend too long staring at your wrist.

Each app on this list has been tested by the writer to assure quality performance and functionality as described. 

HomeRun 2 for HomeKit gives you control over smart home devices that work with HomeKit, all from your wrist. It isn't as in-depth as Apple's built-in Home app, but it is much easier to use because it focuses on quick access to your devices. HomeRun 2 also has support for customizable Apple Watch complications. These complications can be set to change their look and function throughout the day, showing different scenes or information exactly when needed.

For example, a complication could display a "good morning" scene when you wake up and then switch to a "movie night" scene later in the evening. This lets you automate your watch face to show the most useful information without having to change faces manually. The app also lets you organize scenes into flexible, customizable grids and pick from thousands of icons and color combinations to match their style.

HomeRun 2 also works with the Siri Watch Face, which suggests routines and actions at the right times of day. It may seem like a downside that setup is done on the iPhone, but the app's real strength is giving you fast, one-tap access to preset scenes directly from the Apple Watch.

The Find My app makes your Apple Watch much more useful by turning it into a handy tool for finding your Apple devices, personal belongings, and even friends and family, all from your wrist. When you lose a device, the Apple Watch app lets you check the current location of your iPhone, iPad, Mac, AirPods, or other Apple devices linked to your Family Sharing group on a map. If the device is close by, you can tap to make it play a sound, helping you find it without searching everywhere. This is especially helpful when your phone is buried under couch cushions or left in another room. If a device is far away or lost, you can turn on lost mode to lock it remotely with a passcode and show a contact message.

Find My on Apple Watch also helps track personal items using AirTags or other compatible Find My accessories. This means you can locate things like your wallet or keys by making the AirTag play a sound or, for supported devices, using the Precision Finding feature to guide you straight to the item. Being able to track lost items and show your contact info to anyone who finds them gives you extra peace of mind. Lastly, you can share your location with contacts and see their locations on your watch, which is great for planning meetups or making sure loved ones have arrived safely.

Action Control for GoPro turns your Apple Watch into a remote control for GoPro cameras. This means you won't need to always handle the camera directly, making it easier to capture important moments without struggling with equipment. It is especially helpful when your GoPro is mounted in difficult-to-access spots, like a helmet during a climb.

The app includes a quick capture feature, letting you start and stop recordings with just a tap. This is extremely useful for precise timing, so you can concentrate on the activity instead of worrying about the camera. Also, Action Control gives live alerts and statistics on your watch, so you can see key details like the GoPro's remaining battery and storage space. This instant feedback makes sure you're always ready to adjust where needed, avoiding missed shots due to dead batteries or full memory cards.

The app does more than just basic recording; it supports flexible shooting modes and preset selection, making it easy to switch between video, photo, and time-lapse modes without touching the camera. For more advanced setups, it enables multi-camera synchronization, which lets you control several GoPros at once. Finally, if you misplace your camera, the Camera Locator feature can trigger a sound on the GoPro to help you find it fast.

Watchsmith gives you control over the customization and information display. It goes beyond static watch faces, too. You can set it up so it automatically adjusts and changes throughout the day based on your preferences. For example, a complication can be set to show weather information in the morning, switch to calendar events during work hours, and then display activity progress later in the day, all without making you manually change watch faces.

The app has a wide range of customization options for its complications, including data sources like the date, time, calendar, activity, weather, tides, astronomy, time zones, and battery level. You can fine-tune the appearance, choosing from many font styles, colors, and background colors to match their personal style. The app also has a few tools that are usually only available in separate apps. These include a standard workout app with dynamic metric displays, an interval-based workout mode, a heart rate app that tracks pulse throughout the day, a mindfulness breathing app, a calendar for upcoming events, a timezone converter, and even games. While that all sounds good, Apple has great apps for those specific features, and so you're likely going to do well just using this app for customization.

Babbel – Language Learning turns idle time into chances to learn a language. The app is able to provide short, easy-to-understand lessons with just a flick of your wrist. Babbel does this by using a special method that adapts to your surroundings. It uses the Apple Watch's GPS along with the Foursquare API to find nearby places of interest. Users can pick categories like "Cafés" or "Restaurants" and learn vocabulary words related to those places.

For example, with a quick tap, a new word will appear, and the user selects its translation. If the answer is right, the word is saved in your personal "deck" for later review. This system lets you collect up to 20 new words per category across 18 different location-based categories, which could add up to 360 words per language, all learned directly from the wrist. Babbel also adds game-like features to the Apple Watch. This is a gameified language learning, which is a good alternative to Duolingo that you may not think about.

Although the app mostly works with the iPhone, it is built to function fully on the Apple Watch even without a Babbel subscription. This lets you fit in a few minutes of vocabulary or common phrase practice while waiting or traveling, making the most of time that would otherwise go to waste.

Medisafe Medication Management turns your Apple Watch into a handy and quick personal assistant for keeping up with your medications. So you can handle important health tasks without worrying if you forgot something. This lowers the chance of missing doses or taking too many. The app has reminders that you can customize and set for specific times. These reminders come as push notifications to your Apple Watch, even if your iPhone is not in use.

The reminders keep coming, repeating three times every 10 minutes, and you can snooze them or mark them as "taken" right from the watch face with a simple tap or Force Touch. This easy access on your wrist is especially important for people with complicated medication schedules or those who tend to forget. The Glance feature lets you quickly check medication doses and upcoming reminders, giving you fast access to important information.

Beyond just reminders, Medisafe uses the Apple Watch's health tracking abilities through its HealthKit connection. This lets you keep an eye on different health measurements like blood glucose, blood pressure, weight, and pulse, along with your medication schedule.

Todoist: To Do List & Calendar gives you the ability to turn your Apple Watch into a fast and convenient personal task manager that you can access right from your wrist. You can easily add new tasks using your voice or the keyboard right on the watch face, which makes it one of the best task management apps worth checking out. The app understands natural language, so you can include due dates and priorities when speaking your tasks, like saying "buy milk tomorrow." This makes it easy to capture ideas quickly, especially when you're busy or your hands are full, so you don't forget anything.

After entering tasks, you can mark them as done with a simple tap on the circle next to the task, which gives you a visual confirmation as the task turns gray. You can also update or add due dates for existing tasks directly from the watch by tapping the calendar icon. One of the best features of Todoist on the Apple Watch is its customizable complications, which show useful information right on your watch face. These complications can display your next task, the number of tasks due today or overdue, or even the percentage of daily tasks you've completed, giving you quick updates without opening the app.

Shazam did so well on Apple Watch that it is now built into the app known as Music Recognition. This turns the Apple Watch into a quick and easy tool for identifying and discovering music right from your wrist. You can activate it with just one tap from the watch face or through its app icon, depending on how your settings are set up. This is one of the new features built into WatchOS 11, so make sure to go into your Music Recognition app and adjust the settings so you can turn it on quickly whenever needed.

The app makes the process simple by automatically saving and syncing identified songs across all your Apple devices using iCloud, so you never lose track of your discoveries. You can view details like the artist, album, and release date of the song, listen to a preview, or open it directly in Apple Music from your watch. Music Recognition also works with Siri, so you can ask, "Hey Siri, what's the name of this song?" to find out what a song is. It can even pop up automatically when music is playing nearby, but you need to enable that kind of thing in the settings.

Apple may come with Apple Maps, but Google Maps is the app most people prefer to use. It works with turn-by-turn navigation right on your wrist, so you do not have to keep taking out your iPhone to check directions. The app lets you get directions to saved locations, like your home or workplace, with just a tap on the watch face. Once you start navigation on your iPhone, the Apple Watch app shows each step of the route, which is helpful for drivers who can glance at their wrist to see the next turn or cyclists who can follow directions without needing to reach for their phone.

The watch also vibrates gently to alert you before a turn, making it easier to navigate without constantly looking at your wrist. Even with its limits, getting quick, vibration-based directions for regular trips or bike rides makes it worth the effort since the maps are so well made. What's good about these maps is that they're made and adjusted over time because of people using Google. The maps use a large database of geographical information, including satellite imagery, aerial photography, and user-contributed data, to keep it as accurate as possible.

The Stocks+ app lets you use your Apple Watch as a handy and quick tool for tracking the stock market and monitoring your portfolio. The Apple Watch app gives you an easy-to-read view of your stock portfolio fast, and lets you quickly check the current price, percentage change, and even a simple graph for a specific stock.

For more active monitoring, Stocks+ on Apple Watch has an option to set personalized alerts to be notified about changes in a stock's price, percentage change in price, or market cap. This function makes sure you never miss an important market shift, sending you timely notifications right to your wrist. The app also lets you create customizable watchlists that can be tracked, giving you a personalized overview of your favorite stocks or potential investments. While basic features are free, full access to all Apple Watch app features, including unlimited customizable alerts and portfolio tracking from your wrist, requires a Stocks+ Membership. Still, the free version is more than enough for quick glances to see any changes.

Heart Analyzer: Pulse Tracker gives you deep insights into your heart health data right from your wrist. It uses the detailed metrics recorded by the smartwatch to turn raw data into a clear and useful understanding of your heart health, making it easy to interpret and act on. The features this app comes with let you see important health information at a glance on your watch face without opening the full app. You can quickly check your heart rate, heart rate variability, blood oxygen levels, and resting heart rate trends, so you can slow down or take a break when needed. The app turns your watch into one of the best heart rate monitors you can wear.

This isn't just instant access to data but daily summaries and long-term trends. After exercising, you can immediately review detailed workout metrics, heart rate charts, and recovery data right on your wrist, making it easy to analyze your performance. The Apple Watch is known for its accuracy in heart rate measurements, with studies showing very low error rates, so the data Heart Analyzer uses is trustworthy. Additionally, Heart Analyzer puts user privacy first by avoiding third-party analytics and processing all data directly on your device. This keeps your health information secure and unchanged.

The iTranslate Converse app can translate spoken words in real time. This means you can have two-way conversations with someone who speaks a foreign language thanks to your Apple Watch. This feature helps break through language barriers to have natural conversations without having to pull out your iPhone constantly. All you have to do is press and hold the screen on your Apple Watch to speak, then release it to hear the translation right away. This smooth process turns the entire watch screen into one big translation button.

iTranslate Converse works with 38 different languages and smartly figures out which of the two selected languages is being spoken, keeping the conversation flowing naturally. This fast, nearly instant translation is especially useful in fast-paced situations like traveling, where you talk to locals and immerse yourself in the experience more easily. In addition to live translation, the app also lets you see and save full transcripts of your voice conversations. While the app can work offline after downloading language packs, it usually needs an internet connection to function fully.

The MyFitnessPal Calorie Counter app is a handy, real-time nutrition and activity tracker right on your wrist. This makes it easier to manage your health and fitness goals. It's one of the best fitness apps because it works alongside the iPhone app, showing some of the same data and giving you fast access to important features without having to take out your phone. Importantly, MyFitnessPal connects with Apple Health, which serves as the main place where health data from your Apple Watch, like steps and workouts, is collected and then shared with MyFitnessPal. This connection keeps your health stats, fitness goals, and progress up to date and available on both devices.

Once everything is set up, the MyFitnessPal Apple Watch app lets you quickly check key health details. You can see your daily calorie intake, how many calories you have left, and your macronutrient breakdown (carbs, fat, and protein) right on your wrist. The app also automatically tracks your steps using the Apple Watch and uses this information to adjust your daily calorie goal, helping you stay focused on your fitness targets. Additionally, the app lets you quickly log water intake and has a "Quick Add" feature for entering estimated calories, which is helpful for fast updates without opening the iPhone app.