Our editors recommend 20 Apple Watch apps they couldn't live without.
When we review and compare smartwatches against the Apple Watch, its selection of apps always comes out as a key differentiator. But there’s a lot of mediocre stuff out there, which is why we’ve revamped our guide to only include the apps we actually use ourselves.
While Apple Watch apps haven’t changed the game like the iPhone did all those years ago, they enable users to add pretty much any feature they need to their smartwatch.
Want to meditate? There are apps for that. Love a very specific type of workout? There’s an app for that, too. If a wearable – such as Whoop – starts getting attention, you can bet there’s an app that will replicate the features (or you can turn your Apple Watch into a Whoop tracker with our guide).
The problem has often been that Apple Watch apps haven’t been amazing. Even on this list, many integrations are easier to use from your iPhone. But the watch occupies a perfect location on the wrist, so it can be there and do things when your phone can’t.
We polled the team here at Candr Media – which includes Wareable, The Ambient, and Trusted Reviews – for our expert’s most-used Apple Watch apps.
Read the latest reviews: Apple Watch Series 10 | Apple Watch Ultra 2
Our Apple Watch apps experts:
• JS: James Stables – Wareable founder
• B-OB: Britta O’Boyle – Wareable contributor
• CB: Cam Bunton – Candr Media Video Editor
• MP: Max Parker – Editor, Trusted Reviews
The best Apple Watch apps you need in your life
Apple Watch Workout app
Price: Free

B-OB: The standard Apple Workout app has evolved over the last decade into one of the best fitness apps out there. It offers a huge breadth of tracked sports, some of which scratch way beneath the surface – the running and cycling profiles, for example, are loaded with insights and features, including routes, running power, and FTP.
Plus, the Workout API means the app will sync to a host of third-party apps – and other apps (such as TrainingPeaks and Runna) can import workouts into Workouts to complete.
Apple Watch Complication: Displays your activity rings and current workout metrics, such as heart rate and calories burned.
Golfshot
$99.99/£99.99 a year | App Store

JS: One of the few apps that use the Apple APIs to access advanced motion data, Golfshot can be used on the course and range by users looking to improve their swing.
A comprehensive golf app providing GPS, score tracking, and statistics to help improve your game, Golfshot offers real-time distances, course maps, suggestions, and advanced analytics.
In terms of raw features, it’s lightyears ahead of anything else you’ll find on Apple Watch. And the fact that you can look at your swing during a round of golf to understand why bad shots might be creeping in is a powerful proposition.
The auto-shot detection also means that it can track shots on the course, and help you piece together the distances for your clubs. You will need to go in and tell it which club you hit for that to be useful, though, which won’t be to everyone’s taste.
You will also need to be a very experienced golfer to understand the swing analytics or make tweaks – so I don’t feel it’s well-suited to beginners. The data points didn’t tally with the ones I work on with a coach, either, so it’s worth thinking about what your aims and objectives are as a golfer before jumping on board.
Apple Watch Complication: Shows your progress and score mid-round – and a quick start link.
Athlytic
$29.99 per year | App Store

JS: I found this app while I was searching for a series of Apple Watch options that would replicate the functionality of Whoop. And while you can use three or four different ones for the *best* experience, Athlytic will do most of it all in one place.
It will track sleep, recovery, readiness, training load, health trends, HRV and allow you to keep a journal of your health habits, all in one place. The design of the app is pretty bang on too, although some of the graphs can get a bit chaotic.
However, if you’re looking at Whoop but don’t want to use a secondary device, this will scratch the itch — even if the data doesn’t seem quite as reliable.
Apple Watch Complication: You can show pretty much any metric as a single complication, or have a dashboard of key scores on the wrist.
Hole 19
Price: Free (premium tier available) | App Store

JS: Hole19 has always been my favorite free golf app. It’s a fairly simple experience that shows distance to the front/back/middle and allows you to track your scores.
The app will track scores, estimate handicaps, and also act as a golf social media platform, which is really neat. The paid tier offers further analysis – but this is a great app that comes recommended.
Apple Watch Complication: None
Strava
Price: Free (requires Strava) | App Store

B-OB: The Strava app is an obvious choice for anyone who uses the fitness platform, though its highly simplistic nature won’t suit everyone. It tracks your basic metrics during runs/cycles and swims showing basic metrics in real-time, and uploads automatically to the platform.
However, now you can sync Apple Workout sessions with Strava and use the superior app, which makes it a little redundant.
Check out our guide on syncing your Apple Watch with Strava for all the details.
Apple Watch Complication: None
Nike Run Club
Price: Free | App Store

CB: The NRC (Nike Run Club) app has always been held in the highest regard on our team.
Nike Run Club is designed for runners, offering guided runs, personalized coaching, and performance tracking. You can access guided workouts and follow along with them, for some added spice and motivation for your training. It will now also connect to Strava so you can sync your workouts across platforms, which solved our biggest reservations about NRC.
Apple Watch Complication: Displays your running metrics, such as pace and distance, and offers quick access to guided runs.
Gentler Streak
Price: Free (with IAP) | App Store

CB: Gentler Streak is a fitness app that focuses on gently helping you achieve your fitness goals, as the name suggests. It’s not about closing rings every single day – instead, it’s there to plot a path of progress that allows for days off to rest. It encourages you to push when you need to and when to rest. If you wear your Apple Watch at night, it can use your HRV and sleep data to determine how rested you are, and uses that to help advise its guidance too.
Every time you complete an activity on your Apple Watch, it plots the effort/duration and likely impact on your physical condition, and updates its guidance. If you don’t use any other fitness app, it can offer suggestions based on the kind of effort you want to give on any particular day, and can then track those activities within the app.
I love it because it gives me permission to take days off, it’s not pushy, doesn’t ping me all the time telling me to stand up, or close my Move ring. I can ignore all that and just look at the big picture of improving myself without getting stressed out.
Apple Watch Complication: This shows your activity levels and recovery status, helping you balance your workouts effectively.
Peloton
Price: Free for Peloton users | App Store

B-OB: An essential app for anyone who uses Peloton’s equipment or app, this ensures you can integrate your heart rate data into the platform. It offers live and on-demand fitness classes for cycling, running, strength training, yoga, and more. It works with my Peloton equipment but is also usable without it. It’s one of my most-used apps.
Apple Watch Complication: Displays your workout metrics, such as heart rate and calories burned, and provides quick access to classes.
Runna
Price: $99.99/£99.99 per year | App Store

JS: The hot new app in running, Runna offers guided training plans for a variety of goals. Whether it’s marathon training or returning from injury, the guided plans are designed to offer expert coaching directly from your Apple Watch.
It’s more geared to individual coaching than Nike Run Coach (above) and aimed at those with previous training experience. It will throw in a variety of runs and interval sessions, and Runna will guide you on pace during those runs via the Apple Watch app.
It’s the best running training app we’ve used – but it doesn’t come cheap. Certainly a choice for people with specific races in mind, rather than general open training.
Apple Watch Complication: Small complications can quickly load the app – and you can see weekly mileage
Training Today
Price: £2.99 per month or £39.99 lifetime | App Store

JS: This neat app emulates much of what Whoop 4.0 does – but on the Apple Watch instead. It uses your HRV data from the Apple Watch – or other wearables connected to Apple Health – and tells you how ready you are to train. The Watch app shows a simple rating of your Training Readiness, but the iPhone shows a host of data on your training load.
Apple Watch Complication: Displays your Training Readiness score, helping you decide whether to train or rest.
Rise
Price: $69.99 per year | App Store

JS: One of our favorite sleep apps, we love the data visualizations and the design. It helps improve sleep habits by tracking sleep patterns, providing insights, and offering recommendations for better rest. What’s more, it offers a window into the phases of your circadian rhythm, advising you when to plan different types of activity.
Apple Watch Complication: This shows your sleep data and circadian rhythm insights, helping you optimize your activities throughout the day.
AutoSleep
Price: $5.99/£5.99 | App Store

JS: A more simple sleep app for Apple Watch than Rise, it provides a more detailed look at your rest than the standard Apple experience. What’s more, you get so much of AutoSleep for free, it’s a great way to boost the offering of the Apple Watch.
Apple Watch Complication: Displays your sleep score, key metrics, and alarm time.
Calm
Premium: $69.99/£39.99 per year | App Store

MP: Another recommendation from members of the wider Wareable team, Calm offers meditation from the wrist. A meditation and relaxation app offering guided meditations, sleep stories, breathing programs, and calming music to help reduce stress and improve sleep.
The Apple Watch doesn’t add any particular biometric resource, but it does enable you to tune out from the noise of your smartphone and find a quiet place to meditate.
Apple Watch Complication: Provides quick access to meditation sessions and tracks your daily meditation streak.
Spotify
Price: Free / $11.99/£11.99 per month for Premium | App Store

JS: When we reached out to our team to find the apps they used every day, Spotify was the one true common denominator. With offline syncing and auto-curated playlists, Spotify is just as good as the native Apple Music app – and brings the benefits of Spotify, including the huge library, user-generated playlists, and podcasts.
Apple Watch Complication: Displays currently playing tracks and offers quick access to playback controls.
PocketCasts
Price: Free | App Store

MP: If you’re looking for a good podcast app for Apple Watch, PocketCasts gets the nod from Trusted Reviews editor Max Parker. A podcast app featuring a vast library of podcasts, a user-friendly interface, customizable playback options, and cross-platform synchronization.
Apple Watch Complication: This shows your current podcast and playback controls, allowing you to manage your listening easily.
Audible
Price: Free (audio books paid for) | App Store

MP: It’s hardly a hidden gem, but Audible was another recommendation from the Wareable team. An audiobook and spoken-word entertainment app by Amazon, offering a vast collection of audiobooks, original series, and exclusive content.
Apple Watch Complication: Displays your current audiobook and playback controls, making it easy to continue listening from your wrist.
FotMob
Price: Free | App Store

MP: If you’re looking to track sports scores on the wrist, Fotmob offers one of the better Apple Watch experiences. A soccer app providing live scores, match stats, news, and notifications for thousands of leagues and teams around the world.
Apple Watch Complication: Shows live scores and match updates, keeping you informed without needing to check your phone.
CityMapper
Price: Free | App Store

JS: The daddy of urban navigation, CityMapper, is our favorite way to get around London. It’s a comprehensive transit app offering real-time information on public transport, walking, biking, and ride-hailing services in major cities worldwide – and the Apple Watch app means you can get directions, or remember which bus you need to get, without having to pull your phone out and look like a lost tourist.
Apple Watch Complication: Displays your current route and next steps, helping you navigate cities more easily.
Todoist
Price: Free – with IAP | App Store

B-OB: A task management app that helps organize your to-do lists, set reminders, and track projects with a clean, intuitive interface. The best part is that you can use Todoist complications on many Apple Watch faces – so you can quickly see your top to-do list entries without diving into the app.
Apple Watch Complication: Displays your top to-do list entries, providing quick access to your tasks.
StressWatch
Free | App Store

CA: The Apple Watch has some mindfulness features, but it doesn’t track stress natively. The merits of stress tracking are debatable, but if this something you struggle with in your life, there’s a handy app to track it. StressWatch offers most of what you’ll need on a free tier — and it’s also low touch, which I feel is important. No one wants to be stressed out by their stress tracker. It shows your HRV and uses a cute little emoji to reveal your underlying stress levels. Of course, it’s only useful if you take action, so try Headspace or Calm for some mindfulness, too.
Complications: Get a real-time HRV score and rating on your compatible Apple Watch face.