In preparation for Apple’s first wearable device, mobile developers have been busy creating all kinds of applications designed especially for the Apple Watch’s small screen. The watch, which is said by early testers to be so usable that they found they were no longer pulling out their iPhone as often, allows you to interact with a variety of apps and notifications, ranging from productivity apps to social apps to travel and transportation apps, and much more.
A number of the bigger-name apps were announced today on Apple’s stage at its press event in Cupertino, but other developers are using the Apple’s wearable platform as a way to experiment with new ideas, like an Apple Watch-friendly version of email, for example, or status updates that automatically send your friends your location. Below are some of the forthcoming apps for Apple Watch, old and new, so you can get an idea of what’s in store.
(Note: some of these apps were previously aggregated by sites like WatchAware or AppWatchList, which attempted to create collections of soon-to-launch apps ahead of their official reveal. Others were announced today at Apple’s event, or posted to the Apple website.)
PRODUCTIVITY
BetterWorks: The BetterWorks app for Apple Watch will show real-time goal data on wearable devices, offering a lightweight way to show busy executives and employees the progress of their goals without interrupting the work at hand. The app makes it easy for workers to get a quick snapshot of where current goals stand, add short check-ins and cheer on coworkers achieving their goals.
EasilyDo: An organizer app that includes useful notifications
Launch Center Pro: Lets you create multi-step tasks then launch them with a touch.
Mailbox: The simple, swipeable email triage app is coming to Apple Watch.
Todoist: To-do list app that lets you check off your to-do items as well as use the microphone to assign due dates for tasks.
Jiffies: An event-clock app that shows you all your upcoming events as circular segments for the 24-hour day cycle.
Braintoss: This app lets you put reminders and tasks in your email inbox using the Apple Watch. Say what you want to remember and tap the email address that’s in the app, and Braintoss will send that thought to your email so you don’t forget it.
Glimpse: Glimpse lets you define a small part of a webpage to save to your Apple Watch. When you launch Glimpse it updates that portion of the webpage only to give you live status without having to scroll around. It’s an alternative to having to use a web browser on the watch’s small screen.
TL;DR Email: a quick email experience built for both the iPhone and Apple Watch that’s focused on very fast email reading, handling and creation. The idea is to create a different type of email reading experience for Apple Watch, taking advantage of the Watch’s Dynamic Notifications. This means every notification coming to the Watch can adapt itself to look different based its content.
Evernote: This note-taking app lets you dictate a quick note from your Watch, plus view recent notes, set reminders, find notes made near you, and see content related to an upcoming meeting.
24me: A personal assistant on the go with all kinds of notifications: from bill payments reminders to time to leave for meeting based on traffic, meeting reminders, friends birthdays, agenda and a lot more.
Slated: A companion app to the Slated translation keyboard, this app is a sort of customizable phrasebook and universal translator. You say something, it says it back in your choice of language.
Salesforce: The Apple Watch app gives you a quick snapshot of your business analytics, like the top 10 sales opportunities for your company or for a particular division.
Gneo: The company previously created a design-focused calendar and task management app for iOS that was picked as Apple’s Editors’ Choice. The new app will bring a similar experience, but designed for Apple Watch.
Workflow: The powerful task automation app will be available on Apple Watch.
Things: The popular task management and to-do list app is coming to Apple Watch.
Omnifocus: Another popular task management app for iOS is coming to Apple Watch.
Trello: The flexible tool that lets you organize anything, from to-do’s to checklists and more.
FINANCE
PortfolioWatch: This app lets you monitor your stock portfolio. At a glance you’ll be able to see the total profit (or loss) for the day. You can also drill down to see an individual stock’s performance and manage your holdings as well as view charts.
Unspent: Helps you track your spending money and setup budgets for different spending categories.
Mint: View your monthly spending goals and track your progress toward meeting them from your Apple Watch.
Citi Mobile: See your checking, savings, and credit card balances as well as your five most recent transactions. Receive notifications of payment due dates.
TRAVEL/NAVIGATION
Uber: An Apple Watch app lets you connect with Uber’s on-demand car service from your wrist. The app lets you call for an Uber, then track how long until it arrives.
American Airlines: This American Airlines Apple Watch app will allow you to check in to your flight, see if it’s on time, and see how far away your gate is. You can also receive notifications alerting you to when it’s time to leave for the airport, and, during your flight, you can view a map with the time remaining. The app will also tell you where you Baggage Claim terminal is as well as connection details.
Citymapper: The app uses real-time route and timetable data to show when your bus or train arrives. A handy feature is it taps your wrist when your stop is coming up so you don’t miss it.
Starwood SPG: An app for use at properties from Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide. With thhis app, guests can see their reservation details, get directions to their hotel, view Starpoints balance and more. But the coolest feature comes by way of SPG’s Keyless technology which lets you check in and unlock your hotel room door – all from their wrist.
RWY Go: An Apple Watch app for pilots. The app displays every nearby airport in the world along with your relative orientation, distance and bearing.
Expedia: This app lets you check itineraries for your upcoming trips and get detailed flight and hotel information. This includes gates, terminals, times, and seat assignments for flights, and check-in and check-out times, ratings, locations, addresses, and phone numbers for hotels.
ETA: Quickly check driving times to the places you drive the most right on your App. The app for Apple Watch also outlines the traffic conditions on the route whether it be good, slow or really bad. While driving, the app tells you how close you are to your destination.
Poison Maps: Find the nearest points of interest from your Apple Watch, and stores them for access even when offline.
TripAdvisor: Find things to do from your Apple Watch, including restaurants, sights and other tourist destinations.
SHOPPING AND DINING
Retale: The popular, location-based shopping and savings app with over 3 million users, is coming to Apple Watch after launch. The Retale Apple Watch includes a “Store Finder,” retailer ads and deals served to users’ wrists, and allows users to sync preferences, favorites, lists and actions across devices. Retale’s Apple Watch app will also introduce new features to help users to track down items and the best deals locally, including nearby retailer options and map routing.
Daily Bread: A grocery list app that keeps track of items you buy most often and reminds you pick them up when it thinks you are low.
Deliveries: This package tracker app lets you find out when your shipped items are going to be delivered.
Deliveries from @junecloud is coming to Apple Watch! Details and interactive demo: http://t.co/kRdyW1Trqb pic.twitter.com/k1Vwz6lIrt
— WatchAware (@WatchAware) March 3, 2015
Fetch: A personal buying assistant for Apple Watch. You simply tap the watch face and say anything you want to buy, and then a (human) buying assistant will go find the best price and place the order for you. Fetch also supports any on-demand service – so you can use your watch to order food delivery (DoorDash, etc), dry cleaning pick-up (Washio), grocery delivery (Postmates, Wunwun, Instacart, etc). And it works for travel too, so you can just tap the watch face and say you need to be on the next flight to LAX, or that you want your hotel reservation extending for an extra day.
Chameleon: With this app, your Apple Watch will know the best money-saving deals and coupons for the store you are in. Chameleon recognizes when you have walked into any of our supported retailers and pulls in all of the promotions for that location. Many of these coupons can even be redeemed right from your wrist, helping shoppers save serious money with minimal effort.
Target: The retailer’s mobile app will know where you are in the store thanks to its use of iBeacons. This allows it to smartly sort your shopping list for you, guiding you to the next item. And when you’re near something on the list, you’ll also receive a reminder alert.
OpenTable: See details about your upcoming reservations and find your way to the restaurant with a map.
eBay: Track items you’re bidding on or watching, receive outbid notices, and more.
NEWS/BLOGS
CNN: Users will get breaking news across 12 personalized categories, including Top Stories, Health, Entertainment, Politics and more. You tap to open a story and can choose to save it or continue reading on your iPhone. You can also launch live CNN TV on your iPhone, right from your wrist.
Yahoo News Digest: Similar to its iOS counterpart for iPhone, the Apple Watch app will notify you twice daily of the top stories around the world.
Gem News: The app allows people to access information, like news and blogs on smart watches in a smart way. The company’s focus is to bring “real” information, such as news and blogs to the Apple Watch, while taking full advantage of unique features of the Apple Watch. The app uses the unique Glance feature of the Apple Watch to make news and blogs “Glance-able.” 
NPR One: Use your Apple Watch to search for specific shows using dictation, see story names and episodes, and control basic playback functions for the playlist that lives on your iPhone.
NYTimes: See the top headlines, receive breaking news and swipe through stories.
FeedWrangler: An RSS reader that lets you scan the headlines, mark items as read, save items to read later, and even read the full article in the app itself.
.@_DavidSmith previews an interactive version of @FeedWrangler for Apple Watch: http://t.co/kRdyW1Trqb pic.twitter.com/yMW1cjURZe — WatchAware (@WatchAware) March 3, 2015
SOCIAL
Facebook: News Feed, status and photos from your wrist.
Instagram: View and like photos; make comments on your feed
Pinterest: Check notifications from the Apple Watch.
Twitter: Tweet, check your feed and reply to tweets; see trends
WeChat: Message from the Apple Watch.
Match.com: Match’s mobile flirting app is coming to Apple Watch.
Primary: Lets you browse your Instagram feed from your Apple Watch. You can “like” photos or hide ones you don’t want to see again. You can also turn captions off for a minimal view.
Waldo: Sends automatic status updates to your friends and family based on where you are and what you’re up to. Since status updates are automatic, Waldo allows you to quickly look at “cards” of each of your friends to find out where they are and what they’re doing – all from your wrist.
Dude: A context-aware messaging on your Apple Watch. Pick your current location from a list of nearby places, and select a contact or choose to tweet it. The app creates a context-aware sentence which is built based on time of day & current location.
Yo: You can Yo your friends with just a Yo or your location or a photo. You can also subscribe to items from yostore.co in order to receive links and photos from sources like BuzzFeed, NBA, USA Today, and more.
Zello: Turns your watch into a Dick Tracy communicator with a push-to-talk Walkie-Talkie feature that lets you chat with your contacts in real-time using the speaker/mic on your iPhone or Bluetooth headset.
Infinitweet: This app convert tweets of any size to images, bypassing Twitter’s 140 character limit. The primary method of input is voice.
Pinner for Pinboard: Pinner is full-featured app for popular social bookmarking site Pinboard. Users can browse, edit, read, and share bookmarks from their wrists. The most exciting features are quick access to popular and recent bookmarks and using voice to search for tags .
Pop: A simple video texting app, previously launched on iOS, is bringing some of its features to the Apple Watch. There’s no camera in this watch, and no video playback. But the app will show a GIF of messages as you receive them, which is a clever workaround.
Looksee: A new photo that lets you connect and collaborate by using “looks” created by top Instagrammers. A community is built around each unique look and you can share your photo collabs directly to Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, etc. Scroll through your Looksee watch feed to see photo previews. Tap to view full size image, location, profile pic, and filter look used. Long press to like the photo.
Glide: This messaging app’s users will be able to receive notifications of incoming messages and preview a video message that was sent to them. They will also be able to act on these notifications and quickly reply using pre-defined text messages without having to take out their iPhone. Users can also review the last few messages they received and open Glide on their iPhone directly to that chat in order to record their video message response.
HEALTH & FITNESS
Fitness Spades: Gamifies your workouts (The idea is rather than do the same workout routine, users draw cards which dictate the workout to)
Nike+ Running: This running app lets you track your distance, duration and pace from your Apple Watch. Friends can also cheer you on, and, using Bluetooth headphones, you can listen to music wirelessly during your workout.
Run 5K: A “couch to 5K” fitness app, Run 5k is a voice-guided training app to help new runners. The app tells you when to jog, when to walk and when to rest.
Beautiful jogging coach app 5K Run shares an interactive version of their Apple Watch app: http://t.co/kRdyW1Trqb pic.twitter.com/v5Ug9d6yL8
— WatchAware (@WatchAware) March 3, 2015
Slopes: Track your skiing and snowboarding speeds plus other stats using GPS.
Stepwise: A pedometer, calorie and weight fitness tracker. StepWise shows your steps, distance walked, and percentage of success against your daily goal with a glance using a visual progress indicator.
Deadline: This app uses your health data and questionnaire, to estimate your longevity. As a reminder that life is short, you’ll see a countdown to your demise.
Runtastic: This running app displays your speed, distance, duration, pace, and how many calories you’ve burned on your wrist.
Strava: See real-time stats like elevation gain, average speed, distance, and heart rate during your ride or run.
MUSIC AND ENTERTAINMENT
Highnote: Designed for musicians and dancers, this app let you adjust the tempo and key of the tracks in your music library as you are playing.
Fandango: After buying tickets on the service, the Apple Watch app will display the show time, theater location and a mobile barcoded ticket that can be scanned for easy entry into the auditorium.
Pacemaker DJ: This app uses the Autopilot DJ feature from your iPad app which quickly mixes the tracks you choose so everything blends together seamlessly.
Shazam: Tapping on the app icon will prompt your iPhone to listen to what’s playing. The Apple Watch then displays the name of the song, the artist, and the lyrics.
SPORTS
ESPN: This app lets you get sports-related notifications, like the scores from your favorite teams.
MLB.com At Bat: This app lets you check schedules, receive live updates including pitch-by-pitch updates, and view the stats for your favorite teams. You can also check out player details, highlights and scores from around the league.
AUTO
BMW i Remote: Designed for BMW i, this app will check the charge status of your electric BMW i and receive a notification when the car is fully charged. You can also check range, door-lock status, service reminders, and more, as well as adjust the cabin temperature from your wrist.
Hyundai Blue Link: This app connects to your Blue Link equipped Hyundai vehicle.
SMART HOME/HOME AUTOMATION
Honeywell: This app will control your Honeywell home system from your Apple Watch. Presets like “I’m Away” or “I’m Going to Sleep” make your thermostat more efficient. You can also switch to “out of Town” mode to save energy.
Lutron: This app allow you to control your home’s lights, shades, temperature and other things.
OnSwitch: Control the Philips Hue and LIFX smart bulbs from your Apple Watch.
MISC
Colordrop: The Colordrop Watch app can then be used to compare colors at a closer level, and get quick look information like color codes and RGB values. Colordrop can be a helpful tool to help choose, compare and learn about colors. Graphic designers can use Colordrop to create color schemes, while interior designers can create palettes and color schemes for their work.
StaySafe: This panic button app will resemble the company’s iOS version, but will also be leveraging the heartbeat monitor to the watch version. The app will include the ability to start and stop tracking sessions, extend a session, view the time remaining on a session, and discreetly trigger the panic button alarm.
Snake: Because the watch would not be complete without this classic small screen game. (No link yet, but it’s being built!)
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