A YEAR ago this month, Apple made its Apple Watch available for sale. In the 12 months since, the smartwatch has received mixed reviews, and many people are still uncertain about what the device can do.
The Apple Watch’s uses, of course, partly depend on the apps available for it. On that front, the news is good — the list of apps for the watch is ever-growing. Here are some of the best ones to try.
The Buy Me A Pie shopping list app lets you share information to simplify shopping.
My favorite Apple Watch app is one of the simplest. It’s called Facer, and it does one thing: It puts a different background image on the screen of your watch every time you raise it to see the time. This is weirdly rewarding. I love glancing down to see a new or interesting image when checking the watch, and it reminds me that this device really is a piece of 21st-century technology.
There are a few limitations to Facer. The biggest is that you are stuck with only one watch face design the simplest, which shows only an image and the time. That means you will not see features like alerts or weather information that you can see on other watch faces. You also have to pay for some of the images, which can cost $1 and up.
The most useful watch app I have installed is Grocery Shopping List Free — Buy Me a Pie!, which works on both the watch and iPhone.
The idea is that when you survey your shelves and refrigerator, you use the iPhone app to pull together a shopping list. The app makes this easy, offering prearranged options for items you may regularly buy, like bread, milk, bagels and so on. You can color-code each item to make identifying different categories of products easy, and items the app does not already have can be typed in. You can also set up multiple lists, and share them with others.
When shopping, you can view your shopping list on your watch, without having to fish out your phone. This is a fabulous memory aid. Swiping the items on the watch screen to mark them as bought is satisfying. And you can use dictation on the watch to add items to a list, which is great when you suddenly remember something you need to buy.
Promoting health and fitness is a great use for the watch, and the $3 HeartWatch is particularly helpful. The app shows your most recent heart rate reading, as well as an indication of your average heart rate and the maximum and minimum for that day.
At a glance this can tell you if your heart has been speeding, which is useful after a jog, for example. By using Force Touch — pressing hard on the watch — you can add a note to that day’s readings, or add a measurement to your Apple Health app, including weight, body temperature and many more.
The accompanying iPhone app is well designed and can display lots of heart health statistics, most of which are easily readable thanks to clever graphics. You can also use it to track your sleeping habits
A better sleep tracking option, though, is the free Sleep++. This works by measuring your movements during the night via your Apple Watch, giving an indication of how restless you were.
The app has one button to turn the sleep-detecting mode on, during which it displays your bedtime and how long you have been sleeping. There is also a single button to turn the sleep mode off, after which the app shows some sleep statistics. The accompanying iPhone app displays detailed information about sleep patterns.
The one downside of this app is that the watch must be worn during the night, which may be uncomfortable for some.
Cycles is another useful free health app, delivering at-a-glance information about a menstrual cycle. Its accompanying iPhone app lets people log many more details and set up alerts.
Final mentions go to the eye-pleasing weather app Weather Underground, which I prefer to Apple’s own weather option; Meetup, a great location-based watch app that is good for meeting like-minded people for work or for shared pastimes; and Glyphica, a text-based adventure like so many classic adventure games that you can actually play on your watch. These are all free.
