So you’ve managed to get your hands on Apple’s latest piece of tech. There are some great native apps pre-installed on the Apple Watch, but which third-party apps should you be grabbing from the App Store to supplement them? Here’s our highly subjective top ten of apps we think you won’t want to miss.
Remember that all these apps are downloaded as usual from the App Store, and will install to both your iPhone and Apple Watch. Some of these choices are already popular with iPhone users – if you already have the app in question, just open the Apple Watch configuration app and make sure ‘Show App on Apple Watch’ is turned on.
Free • 20.3 MB • v6.11.2 • Instagram, Inc.
The social photo-sharing app is one of the first big third-party apps with Watch support. Browse your feed to see your buddies’ latest snaps, plus be kept up to date on activity on your own account. Glance support shows multiple recent posts.
Free • 54.4 MB • v6.26.1 • Twitter, Inc.
Another big social networking player, Twitter’s official Apple Watch app provides quick access to top trends via the included Glance. The app itself can show a timeline of latest posts, or more details from the day’s top ten trends. No support for composing tweets yet, though.
Uber
Free • 48.3 MB • v2.75.1 • Uber Technologies, Inc.
The ‘modern way to travel’, available in over 50 countries. Watch support provides an easy way to connect to a personal driver and check progress without fiddling with your phone. Get picked up within minutes, and notified straight to the wrist when your chosen vehicle is approaching.
Pennies
$2.99/£2.29 • 8.0 MB • v1.8 • Emile Bennett
Simple, efficient budgeting app with a straightforward spend-tracking system that’s a perfect match for the Apple Watch. Pennies uses color-coding to let you know if you’re within budget for the day – or month – and doesn’t overcomplicate proceedings with too much analysis.
Read more: full Pennies review
Rules!
$2.99/£2.29 • 25.3 MB • v3.0.1 • TheCodingMonkeys
One of the first games to come to Apple Watch, and one which is uniquely suited to the device. It’s a cute memory-and-logic-based puzzler that brings a daily brain workout mode to your wrist, simplified just enough to make sense for shorter play sessions.
Calcbot
Free • 4.6 MB • v2.1 • Tapbots
With no official calculator app for Apple Watch – though Siri can do simple math for you – there’s a hole in the market for a simple, intuitive app for quick calculations. Calcbot does that and more, with handy currency/weight conversion and smart tip calculations to boot.
Evernote
Free • 65.8 MB • v7.7.4 • Evernote
The ultimate ‘modern workspace’ that syncs between all your devices. On the watch you can view recent notes as well as dictate new ones for transcription. Plus there’s support for Evernote reminders and notifications so you can always stay organized.
Read more: why you should install Evernote
Instapaper
Free • 28.6 MB • v6.3 • Instapaper Holdings, Inc.
One of our favorite ‘read later’ apps for saving and storing articles you come across online but don’t have time to read right away. Instapaper for Apple Watch give you easy access to all your saved articles, and can even read them out to you using text-to-speech!
Read more: the best ‘read later’ apps for iPhone
iTranslate
Free ($4.99/£3.99 for Premium) • 28.7 MB • v8.3 • Sonico GmbH
The future is now! Speak into your wrist in one language and the Apple Watch will instantly translate your voice into your choice of over 90 languages. Also provides a mini-dictionary for quick lookup of foreign words – incredibly useful for trips abroad.
Yum-Yum!
Free • 65.4 MB • v1.9 • Yummly
Powerful recipe search based on popular website Yummly, with a personalized recipe recommendation feed. You can access shopping lists straight from the watch, as well as full detailed cooking instructions and built-in timers for certain actions.
Honorable mentions: news apps
We also think it’s pretty essential to grab a news app, but there are a ton to choose from and everyone will have their personal favorite source of news. Here are a few solid choices that can deliver snappy headlines straight to your wrist:
CNN App for iPhone
Free • 31.3 MB • v2.7.3 • CNN Interactive Group, Inc.
Up to the minute breaking news across 12 personalized categories. Watch support is really well implemented with information available at a glance.
BBC News
Free • 9.6 MB • v3.0.5 • Media Applications Technologies Limited
The obvious choice for Brits, listing the day’s Top News as well as a customizable ‘Your News’ section which focuses on the things you’re most interested in.
Breaking News +
Free • 15.0 MB • v3.6.0 • NBC News Digital, LLC
NBC’s app helps you discover location-based breaking stories so you always know what’s going on around you – plus updates on trending stories from social media.