By Jonathan Keane
If you were lucky enough to get your hands on the Apple Watch, you’re probably tinkering with your new smartwatch right now and trying out new apps. Before the Apple Watch even made it into customers’ hands, its app ecosystem was already populated with dozens and dozens of different apps from news to games.
Developers have been quick to take advantage of the latest device from Apple and claim a stake on your wrist with older iPhone and iPad apps undergoing updates of late to add Apple Watch support.
According to Apple, as of April 24th when the Watch was officially released, there were over 3,000 apps in its new app store. You’ll find your obvious choices like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram with ease but here are some other slick apps worth checking out.
Shazam
The go-to music discovery app, Shazam, for identifying songs playing around you has come to the Apple Watch. The watch version will include some of Shazam’s more recent features for identifying lyrics and Auto Shazam, where the app will constantly monitoring for music in your surroundings as long as the app is open.
Evernote
The Apple Watch version of Evernote takes everything from the iPhone version but throws in some handy features for working on the go. You can still dictate messages and read your latest notes or just swipe notes from the watch face to send to your iPhone for later reading.
Flipdish
An Irish effort, food delivery app Flipdish was developed by Dublin brothers Conor and James McCarthy. The app, which will also be available on other iOS devices, is focused on the watch with Apple Pay functionality. Apple Pay is expected to launch in Europe later this year and the app will centralise everything from ordering to payment in one solution on your wrist with just two taps according to the developers.
Nike+ Running
Like a lot of wearables, the Apple Watch has some handy fitness and exercise uses and there are already a ton of apps out there for monitoring your routine. Nike+ Running helps you keep track of your time and performance as well as managing your tunes for working out.
Instapaper
Offline reading app Instapaper recently updated its features for Apple Watch support, and is ideal for saving articles when out and about for reading later. The developers have added a new text-to-speech feature for the Apple Watch to listen back to articles before liking, saving, and archiving.
Breaking News
If Twitter made news more succinct at 140 characters, then the Apple Watch is going to make things even briefer. Breaking News, the news aggregator that already has millions of followers of Twitter, has released its Apple Watch app that shrinks your news down to your wrist with customisable notifications. It’s also experimenting with a new “tap to tip” feature that allows the user to submit a news tip to Breaking News’ editors based on your location.
Slack
The collaborative messaging app of choice these days, Slack has added Apple Watch support in its last update. Users can read and reply to their most recent direct messages and keep track of their mentions through their wrist while on the go.
