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Apps Share your Apple Watch apps that are actually useful

Joe Rossignol

Joe Rossignol

Senior Reporter
Original poster
Staff member
May 12, 2012
960
3,795
Canada
There are 3500 apps for Apple Watch so far and a lot of them are slow or pointless after the novelty wears off in 5 seconds. So, what are your favorite Apple Watch apps that you actually find useful? I'll start.
  • Philips Hue: Control your Hue lightbulbs using your wrist
  • Lifesum: Keeps your day-to-day life on track
  • Shazam: No more fumbling to get your iPhone out of your pocket before the song you're trying to identify ends
  • Yahoo Weather: Very sleek design and offers detailed weather information
  • Passbook: Having your boarding pass on your wrist is one less stressful thing to worry about at the airport

Please note, this is a thread for Apple Watch owners to recommend apps you have found useful and should not be used by app developers to promote their own Apple Watch apps.
 
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Try The WeatherUnderground, its the best weather app that is available for the watch. And i mean best as in most accurate. I find Yahoo isn't very good for Canada
 
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Dreamdays 365
Water Tracker
EasyWOL ( srsly. Starting my devices via Wake-On-LAN from my wrist is just too cool to be true )
Tally Counter
CalcBot
 
MediSafe to track the medication my wife is taking after surgery.
 
I love the watch and the myriad of apps that I have, the one that truly has blown my mind is CityMapper.

It tells you the arrival of every bus and train on your journey live (in london) and uses apple maps for the walking parts giving the ol tappity tap navigation which is just too cool.
 
I use drafts more than expected to dictate a quick note to deal with later.

The others are:
  • Overcast
  • Wunderlist
  • Departure Board (my app)
 
dyt1983 said:
Honeywell Lyric
Fandango
United


and from the native apps, I frequently use:

Camera Remote
Passbook
Messages :D
Click to expand...

The Fandango app??? All it does is open to a quote from a movie. I wouldn't consider that "useful". Or am I missing something here?:)
 
WebMD, for medication reminders. The only problem with this is, I take my medications at night. Usually the watch comes off when I get home. Though I suppose this is useful for people who wear theirs at home.

Passbook, Paying for stuff with your hand over the reader is really cool. Feels futuristic.

Notifications, this one is obvious.
 
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TMW said:
The Fandango app??? All it does is open to a quote from a movie. I wouldn't consider that "useful". Or am I missing something here?:)
Click to expand...

I heard that it only works when you buy an entrance to a movie that it will send something like a QR code to the Watch app so it can be scanned. I agree the app itself is not very intuitive.
 
BeyondtheTech said:
I heard that it only works when you buy an entrance to a movie that it will send something like a QR code to the Watch app so it can be scanned. I agree the app itself is not very intuitive.
Click to expand...

Oh ok. I have tickets to see Avengers 2 at 7pm today, but my wife bought them, so maybe I'll find out the next time I go to see a movie.:D
 
Joe Rossignol said:
There are 3500 apps for Apple Watch so far and a lot of them are slow or pointless after the novelty wears off in 5 seconds. So, what are your favorite Apple Watch apps that you actually find useful? I'll start.
  • Philips Hue: Control your Hue lightbulbs using your wrist
  • Lifesum: Keeps your day-to-day life on track
  • Shazam: No more fumbling to get your iPhone out of your pocket before the song you're trying to identify ends
  • Yahoo Weather: Very sleek design and offers detailed weather information
  • Passbook: Having your boarding pass on your wrist is one less stressful thing to worry about at the airport
Click to expand...
I like all of the above but Philips Hue. I can't get it to do anything but turn lights that are already on, off. Anyone else try it?
 
cliegal said:
I like all of the above but Philips Hue. I can't get it to do anything but turn lights that are already on, off. Anyone else try it?
Click to expand...

Works fine for me. You pick what scenes you want in app on phone and you can turn off and pick scenes. I would say the hue widget app works much better. Really quick at loading
 
maricc said:
Try The WeatherUnderground, its the best weather app that is available for the watch. And i mean best as in most accurate. I find Yahoo isn't very good for Canada
Click to expand...

I like Weather Underground on my iPhone, but it's pointless on the watch. I have a weather complication directly on my watch face that shows the current temp and today's forecast. Touching it takes me right to the extended forecast.

With weather underground, you have to go to it in the glance view or open the app directly - takes much longer for basically the same information.

Speaking of 3rd party apps only, since I've gotten great use out of Workouts, Passbook, etc....
Overcast (will likely drop it once Apple adds an official podcast app)
Due (reminders app. has the ability to import apple reminders in case you like using siri to add new ones)
Evernote (check boxes for grocery shopping)
Twitter (great for quick feed checking while on the can)
Hipchat (work notifications when I walk away from my office)
Shazon (duh)
 
Chipotle! It's just a "burrito button" to have your favorite order made at your local restaurant.
 
dontwalkhand said:
WebMD, for medication reminders. The only problem with this is, I take my medications at night. Usually the watch comes off when I get home. Though I suppose this is useful for people who wear theirs at home.

Passbook, Paying for stuff with your hand over the reader is really cool. Feels futuristic.

Notifications, this one is obvious.
Click to expand...

Problem #2: WebMD won't let you add a custom medication. If it isn't in their database, you can't make a reminder. They don't even seem to have a placeholder choice.
 
Citymapper
SamMote (remote control TV)
Do Button (control Nest)
SoundHound (identify song)
Stocard (Tesco/Sainsburys etc store cards on watch)
Authy (two factor authentication codes)
1password (useful codes on wrist)
 
Shazam Question

I see people posting Shazam as one of their favorite apps. Doesn't SIRI identify songs using Shazam? Are there advantages (lyrics, etc.) to using the Shazam app over simply asking SIRI 'What song is this'?
 
RAD1 said:
I see people posting Shazam as one of their favorite apps. Doesn't SIRI identify songs using Shazam? Are there advantages (lyrics, etc.) to using the Shazam app over simply asking SIRI 'What song is this'?
Click to expand...


Siri doesn't identify songs on the apple watch... If you ask her to she'll just tell you to use handoff to start Siri on the phone.

It's also worth noting that shazam for the apple watch actually uses the mic on the phone because devs don't have access to the mic on the watch yet. I was having trouble getting it to recognize a song until I realized that my phone was in a place where the mic couldn't pick up the music. That said, though, shazam for the watch does work quite well.
 
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