Key Points
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The best Apple Watch apps let you track workouts, connect with others, and prioritize your health.
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Wristcam, a favorite Apple Watch app, lets you FaceTime with your Apple Watch.
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Showering with your smartwatch is only recommended if you have the Ultra.
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Strava, LifeSum, Pocket Yoga, Nike Training Club, Round Health, Smart Gym, Apple Fitness, Pro Camera 8, and Spotify were 2022's best Apple Watch apps.
Expertly designed for fitness enthusiasts, an Apple Watch is a wearable smartwatch that uses WiFi and Bluetooth to communicate with your iPhone. It fits comfortably on your wrist and comes with a wide range of apps that complement your desired lifestyle. Of course, don't forget the different wristband accessories! This article covers some of the best Apple Watch apps that track your workouts and keep you motivated.
An Apple Watch is the ultimate device for a healthy life, and the best Apple Watch apps add an impressive amount of convenience to your world. It’s your personal health assistant, fitness partner, and mini smartphone all in one!
Not only does an Apple Watch keep you connected to people through texts, calls, and emails handled straight from your wrist, but it also functions as a real-time performance tracker during your workouts. Apple Watch measures your activity to provide data on your total calories burned, steps taken, flights of stairs climbed, walking distance achieved, heart rate, and more.
From start to finish, this device provides a visually motivating and gratifying aid to your fitness ambitions. With a few taps of your finger, set goals for your health, fitness, nutrition, sleep, water intake, and mental well-being.
Specific apps on your watch hold you accountable by sending routine reminders that are informative and deeply encouraging.
2022’s Best Apple Watch Apps
With Apple Watch apps, you have a whole world of possibilities attached to your wrist. Customize your watch face, count calories, record your workouts, listen to music, take notes, send messages, receive phone calls, and capture photos and videos all without your paired smartphone in your hands!
Here’s everything you need to know about 2022’s best Apple Watch apps:
Strava
Think Instagram for athletes. Strava is a popular running app with a competitive social atmosphere. It provides a host of outdoor routes and tracks metrics like distance, pace, and calories, all while encouraging constant self-improvement.
Strava is a rockstar app in the running community and highly addictive. Users send and receive “kudos” (the same as a “like” on Instagram), earn crowns and trophies, and embark on creative adventures. In addition, the app offers the option to track swimming, yoga, weight lifting, and other exercise activities.
Strava requires a premium membership to access its noteworthy features.
Price: $11.99 per month or $79.99 per year.
LifeSum
With over 55 million global users, LifeSum competes for the top nutrition app title. While MyFitnessPal is great for counting calories and logging exercise, LifeSum enables you to visually track the foods you eat and analyze their nutritional value on a more detailed level.
Get a full rundown of daily caloric intake, proper hydration, and key macronutrients, along with a personalized eating plan that caters to any dietary restrictions you have. LifeSum administers the basics for a balanced, sustainable diet without all the fancy, distracting add-ons.
The app has a food and drinks database home to thousands of brands, so it's easy to document your daily meals accurately. Can’t find something? Scan the item’s barcode, and LifeSum takes care of the rest.
While there’s a free version of LifeSum with limited features, the best features do require a subscription.
Price: Free or $49.99 annually
Nike Training Club
Want to focus more on your workout and less on your phone? Nike Training Club for Apple Watch has you covered! It includes an extensive collection of gym and at-home workouts with varying intensity levels and exercises that target specific muscle groups.
Need help with the motivation to exercise regularly? Nike Training Club sends daily push notifications that are uplifting and inspirational. The app automatically records your workout stats, allowing you to reflect on your breakthroughs and develop a healthy routine.
Price: Free for all users!
Pocket Yoga
Are you looking for a short, relaxing yoga sesh? The Pocket Yoga app lets you practice anywhere, anytime. A soothing voice guides you through yoga poses and breathing techniques and gives alignment cues.
Pocket Yoga offers over 20 different yoga styles and provides visuals to accompany each movement. Record your sessions to observe your long-term progress, and utilize the app’s comprehensive pose dictionary to learn the why behind every posture.
Price: A one-time fee of $2.99!
Smart Gym
Constantly checking your spiral notebook for the next exercise in between sets is annoying and destroys your momentum. The same goes for pulling up a notes app or rewatching that fitness influencer’s video on your phone.
Wouldn’t you much rather peek at your wrist and move on? You finally can with Smart Gym. It’s a timesaver and workout partner combined. Before your gym session, flesh out all the details in the app’s iPhone version — your exercise goals, sets, reps, weight, and rest timers.
Not comfortable creating your own workouts? No problem! Smart Gym has a variety of pre-built exercises that you access instantly from your Apple Watch.
Price: Free with in-app purchases.
Round Health
Round Health is the Apple Watch app you didn’t know you needed! As your trusty health assistant, Round Health virtually stores all your vitamins, supplements, and prescription medications. It also reminds you to take them regularly.
Skipping a daily vitamin isn’t a big deal, but forgetting to take your heart medication, antibiotics, or birth control has much greater consequences. Thankfully, Round Health is there to save the day!
Are you worried about remembering to take your medicine on vacation? This app is perfect for travel. Set your Round Health reminders, sit back, relax, and enjoy your trip.
Price: Free for all users!
Apple Fitness+
Using Apple Fitness is a no-brainer for Apple Watch wearers. It integrates exceptionally well with your device and has over 1,000 workout classes.
Expect to see the following exercise types:
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Kickboxing
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HIIT (High-intensity interval training)
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Yoga
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Core
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Dance
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Strength training
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Cycling
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Rowing
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Treadmill
Apple Fitness adds brand-new classes weekly to the library. Their top-notch, certified instructors make you feel as though you’re sweating and grinding in the same room!
Choose from workout increments of 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, and 45-minute options. Whether you desire a quick sweat sesh, a fully loaded workout, or a happy medium between the two, Apple Fitness delivers every time.
Choose from a dropdown list of exercise activities and tap the appropriate icon to begin. Start, pause, and end your workouts from your wrist. Track your performance metrics on the screen and view your workout summary once you finish.
Bonus: The app contains a family-sharing feature that lets up to five family members join the fun. A family that stays fit together, stays together. Kudos to your bank account!
Price: New members enjoy a 3-month free trial and then pay $9.99 per month.
Pro Camera 8 + HDR
Ever wish you could take insanely cool photos from a distance without needing someone else to be present?
Are you a professional or recreational photographer? If so, this app is for you! Pro Camera 8 revolutionizes mobile photography. Easily capture photos and videos, edit them, and accurately control the exposure.
Your Apple Watch has a shutter button, timer, video starter, and camera selector. Position your smartphone how you like, set the stage, and use your apple watch as a remote to snap away.
Price: Pay $5.99 per month.
Spotify
You already know that music makes or breaks a workout. Having a fire playlist motivates you to exercise while traveling and helps you get through long airplane flights.
The best part about Spotify for Apple Watch? Stream music, podcasts, and audiobooks directly to your device and download your favorites to play offline without an internet connection. All you need is an Apple Watch Series 3 or later, a Spotify Premium membership, and paired Bluetooth earphones.
College students: Spotify has a special section for Study Music playlists that help you focus on acing that upcoming test! Even better? You get a 50 percent discount on your membership!
Price: $9.99 per month.
Safety and Convenience Benefits
Do you feel like you’re gambling with your life while driving because you have to look down at your phone’s navigation app constantly? You justify the risky behavior because you have to know what exit or turn to take! Getting lost in the middle of nowhere is just as dangerous, too, right?
Ditch that unnecessary anxiety. Since your phone's navigation app immediately syncs to your Apple Watch as you drive, your only focus becomes dodging traffic and following the fastest route to your exercise spot.
Every time you approach a direction change, the watch delivers a buzz prompt that lightly shocks your wrist (don’t worry, it doesn’t hurt!).
No more taking your eyes off the road or steering with one hand while your other hand holds your phone. Instead, rotate your watch hand to glance at the instruction on the screen briefly. The road remains in your view to help you safely reach your workout destination.
The Apple Watch also protects your ears by gauging the decibel levels in your environment and prompting you when things get a little too loud.
Don’t have your wallet on you? Use your watch to Apple Pay by double-clicking the side button.
How to FaceTime With an Apple Watch
The Apple Watch lets you send and accept FaceTime audio calls without the video feature, thanks to the built-in microphone and speaker. However, your Apple Watch doesn’t have a camera, so enjoying the full advantages of a FaceTime call is impossible.
There’s a solution if you’re willing to drop an extra $299. By purchasing a Wristcam (made exclusively for Apple Watch), pairing it with your device, and attaching it to the top of the screen, you gain the ability to take photos and make video calls. Voila!
How To Make a FaceTime Call With Your Apple Watch
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Push the digital crown button located on the side of your watch.
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Press the Call app.
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Tap “Contacts.”
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Scroll and select your desired contact.
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Touch the phone icon.
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Select “FaceTime Audio.”
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Control volume by turning the digital crown knob.
Showering With an Apple Watch
Technically, you can shower with an Apple Watch, but it’s frowned upon by Apple manufacturers. While your watch is water-resistant, it's not waterproof. Apple designed this watch to withstand sweat and minimal water exposure, but soaps and other shower products may irreversibly damage your device and impair its water-resistant capacity.
Avoid deep water submersion and high-velocity water activities unless you have an Apple Watch Ultra. Also, ditch your watch before entering a sauna or steam room.
Device Safety Tip: Always turn the “Water Lock” feature on before getting your Apple Watch wet. Do this by swiping up to the Control Center and tapping the water droplet icon. After your water activity, press the digital crown button until it ejects water from your device’s speakers.
What Is Better Than the Apple Watch?
In terms of functionality, Apple is successfully leading the smartwatch market. The only device better than the Apple Watch is the most updated and expensive version: the Apple Watch Ultra. Thanks to the silver titanium casing, it's lightweight and comfortable to wear, but it comes with a $799 price tag.
The Ultra has an improved battery life of up to 36 hours, enhanced safety features, advanced health sensors, a more accurate GPS, and a wider screen for better legibility. These upgrades allow the Ultra to compete against other top brands like Fitbit Sense 2, Versa 4, and Garmin.
Recap On The Best Apple Watch Apps
Jony Ive, Apple’s chief design officer up until 2019, shares that “Apple’s contribution has always been at its most significant when trying to make personalized products" and that the Apple Watch "is the most personal product we’ve ever made."
Apple Watch Apps make your life and your workouts more enjoyable. Run, train, stretch, meditate, jam to music, document fun memories, track meals, and manage your health all from the convenience of your wrist. It doesn’t get any better than that.
