40+ Fantastic Things You Can Do with an Apple Watch Series 3
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Apple Watch Series 3 is Apple’s latest wearable gadget and—in addition to better performance—it features optional cellular connectivity and GPS location services. While the latest Apple Watch keeps the same look as the original, it’s still a pretty big upgrade. Adding cellular truly makes the watch its own device and the increased performance easily makes it one of the best wearable gadgets on the market.
Whether you’re buying an Apple Watch for the first time or upgrading from a previous model, here is a list of a few fantastic and fun things you can do straight from your wrist.
49 Unlock your door
With smart locks such as August and their compatible apps, you can unlock your door with a tap on your wrist. If your lock supports HomeKit you can use the built in Home app or ask Siri to lock or unlock your door for you.
Control your lights (and more)
The built in Home app doesn’t just unlock your door. You can control your smart lights, change the temperature on your smart thermostat, and more. Apple’s HomeKit really opens up new possibilities for home automation.
Learn more about August48 Make a call
Making or taking calls from your wrist is easy, simply ask Siri to call someone or open the phone app. With Apple Watch Series 3 with GPS + Cellular you can take a call kayaking, hiking, or anywhere you have reception, even if you don’t have your iPhone.
47 Record a conversation
Apple doesn’t have a voice memo app for Apple Watch. But there are alternative options on the App Store. Just Press Record does exactly what it says. It has a wonderful watch app that even stores the recording on the watch itself. Recordings sync to your phone and to the cloud (optional) automatically. If you want to feel like a true spy, your watch needs Just Press Record.
Get Just Press Record46 Message a friend
Composing and reading iMessages and texts from your wrist is just as easy as placing a call. Open the Messages app and you can scribble or dictate a new message. The Messages app also supports Tapback, emoji, and more.
Apple Watch gives you unique ways to message, like sharing your heartbeat. You can also draw a small picture or tap the wrist of another Apple Watch user to get their attention.
45 Check your email
If you rely on email for your business it can be a bit of a pain to have to look at your phone every time an email comes in. With Apple Watch you can simply glance at your wrist to check incoming notifications, peruse your inbox, or read a new message. You can even compose a new message right from your watch. Email has never been more portable.
44 Blow a bubble
Apple Watch isn’t just business and emails. You can play games, listen to radio, and more. Bubblegum Hero is a free casual game for Apple Watch that lets you see how many bubbles you can blow without popping them. It’s a fun way to pass a little time when waiting in a long line or waiting room. Simply press the screen to start blowing a bubble and release when you’re ready to stop.
Get Bubblegum Hero43 Stream some tunes
Apple Watch let’s you take your music with you wherever you go, and with the Series 3 you can stream any music from your iCloud library, Apple Music, or third-party apps—like Pandora. Series 3 even features a new radio app 16 GB of built in storage.
Apple Music starts at just $4.99 a month for students. It’s $9.99 for individuals and $14.99 for families. Apple Music give users access to over 40 million songs, a wide variety of playlists and online radio stations (and Beats 1), exclusive content such as Carpool Karaoke and Planet of the Apps, and more. Additionally, Apple Music is ad-free.
You can learn more about Apple Music at apple.com/music. You can download Pandora or Spotify from the app store.
42 Take a note
Strangely, the built-in Notes app on iOS is incompatible with Apple Watch. Maybe Apple will change this in the future, but for now you can still dictate and view notes with third-party apps. A really great note taking app that works with Apple Watch is Bear. It’s highly customizable, supports markdown (MD), and uses the microphone to dictate notes on Apple Watch.
Get Bear41 Check the weather
The wrist is a natural place for glancing at information quickly. If you just want to check the weather, Apple’s default Weather app is great and has a couple of different complications for your watch face (weather and weather conditions).
Additionally, there are many third-party weather apps with their own complications and features. CARROT is an incredible weather app that mimics a homicidal AI that wants to destroy mankind. It provides snarky entertaining comments and features a watch complication that shows both weather conditions and temperature simultaneously.
Get CARROT40 Build a village
It’s no Sim City, but Micropolis is a fun game for your wrist. You can scroll through your existing buildings with the Digital Crown and add new building—or upgrade existing ones—with a tap on the screen.
Get Micropolis39 Stay hydrated
With third-party apps such as WaterMinder you can log your daily water (and other beverage) intake to help you stay hydrated.
WaterMinder lets you add custom sizes and beverages, shows a visualization of your daily water drinking, and keeps a log that syncs with your Health data.
Get WaterMinder38 Find your way
Apple Watch has a built in Maps app and the Series 3 has a GPS and Cellular + GPS option. With the GPS enabled watch your watch can better track your workouts. With the added Cellular feature you can find your way using only your watch, the Maps app, and a cellular connection.
37 Find your friends
In addition to locating yourself and new destinations, Apple Watch can also help find your friends and family. Just setup and use the built in Find My Friends app. With Find My Friends users can share their location temporarily or indefinitely with other users. This is a great feature for knowing where your kids are or keeping track of a large group on vacations.
36 Pay your friends
Apple Watch supports Apple Pay Cash allowing you to send money to friends via iMessage and Apple Pay. Additionally you can download third-party apps, such as Square Cash.
Get Cash (Square Cash)35 Find a place to eat
With the Yelp app for Apple Watch you can locate restaurants, salons, coffee shops, and other businesses in your area. You can even make reservations, or place orders for delivery or pickup from some locations.
Another great app for making reservations from your wrist is OpenTable. OpenTable is a five-star, editor’s choice app that helps you make reservations at over 43,000 restaurants worldwide. OpenTable even offers an iMessage app for planning reservations with friends over iMessage.
Get Yelp Get OpenTable34 Become a farmer
If you like passing the time by planting and harvesting virtual crops, you may want to check out Field Day. This game for you Apple Watch calls itself the tiniest farm in the world and let’s you create your own farm right on your wrist.
Get Field Day33 Track a package
There are a few apps out there for tracking packages. Deliveries by Junecloud seems to be the most robust and most versatile. It lets your track multiple packages from various services including FedEx, UPS, and the United States postal service. Deliveries also has apps available on iPhone, iPad, and Mac so you can keep track of your deliveries anywhere.
Get Deliveries32 Secure your office building
LoopKey is a Brazilian security company that offers the ability to integrate your Apple Watch with your businesses access control system. Allowing you to trade in your keycard for your watch. LoopKey is highly customizable allowing you to control intercoms, gates, and doors.
You can even integrate with services such as IFTTT and Slack. Additionally, you can create secret knock patterns and use your iPhone to gain access.
Learn more about LoopKey31 Pay for lunch
Forgot your wallet? No problem. Every Apple Watch supports Apple Pay and because the cards are stored on the watch itself you don’t even need your iPhone. You can use your Apple Watch to pay for products and services anywhere that accepts Apple Pay.
Apple Pay is accepted at millions of stores including Best Buy, Chevron, Disney Store, Dunkin’ Donuts, GameStop, JetBlue, KFC, Lego, Levi’s, Maceys, Macy’s, McDonald’s, Nike, Old Navy, Panera Bread, Pizza Hut, Sephora, Staples, Starbucks, Toys “R” Us, Walgreens, and much more. Click here to see more.
30 Figure out a 20% tip
While the Apple Watch doesn’t include a calculator there are many available for download. One of the best is PCalc. In addition to basic calculator functions, users can also choose to calculate a tip or convert currency or measurements. The app is also available on macOS and the iPhone and iPad app even offers a fantastic Notification Center widget.
Get PCalc29 Just breathe
Apple’s Breathe app lets you start a breathing session between one and five minutes. Each session guides you through a series of deep breaths. Essentially it’s meant to promote mindfulness and meditation as a way of relieving stress; or dealing with anxiety or depression.
28 Count calories
If you’re looking to track food intake or count calories there are a lot of options on the App Store. The Calorie Counter App from YAZIO is an option that focuses solely on food intake and exercise to simply provide an accurate calorie count.
YAZIO’s app is free to download but requires users sign up for a subscription of $35.99 per year. Using the app is simple, you setup a calorie goal and track the foods you’ve eaten. The rest should happen automatically. The app can track body fat, blood pressure, and blood sugar; and it provides hundreds of healthy recipes.
Get YAZIO Calorie Counter App27 Catch Pokémon
If you’re a Pokémon trainer and you play Pokémon GO, you’ll want to check out Pokémon GO on Apple Watch. The app allows you to start a Pokémon workout so you can walk and hatch eggs. It will notify you of nearby Poké Stops and Pokémon while you walk.
During your workout you’ll see distance walked, elapsed time, and an egg progress bar. You’ll also see nearby Pokémon and be able to check the status of any eggs you’re carrying. When you complete your workout you’ll see a summary including total time and distance, active calories, and the amount of steps you took.
Learn more about Pokémon Go26 Order a pizza
Do you order a lot of pizza? The Domino’s app on Apple Watch lets you reorder your “Easy Order” with just a tap. Set up your profile and Easy Order within your account the first time, after that just tap to place your favorite order.
Get Domino’s app25 Learn a language
Drops, Rosetta Stone, Babbel, and Mondly all offer Apple Watch apps to help you practice languages from your wrist. Popular language learning app Duolingo doesn’t offer a watch app at this time, but if you’re using one of the apps mentioned above you may want to try learning some new words on your Apple Watch.
The Drops app is one of my favorites, the app will present you with an image and a word, if they match swipe up, if not swipe down. After one minute it will show you how many words you made it through and what percent you got correct.
Get Drops Get Rosetta Stone Get Babbel Get Mondly24 Meditate
Centered is a great free app for meditating. It lets you log self-guided sessions or you can choose from four guides sessions ranging from 5 to 19 minutes in length. The app also tracks your mood and your steps.
Get Centered23 Light your way
Apple included a fun flashlight feature in the Control Center on Apple Watch. On any watch face swipe up to access Control Center and select the flashlight icon. The screen will turn white at full brightness. Swipe left to select a strobe option or a red option.
22 Go for a run
The workout app for Apple Watch let’s you choose from a variety of workouts. Apple also has a Nike+ model that features exclusive Nike bands and faces. Download the Nike+ Run Club app to any Apple Watch to start a guided run.
With a GPS enabled run you can track your run even if you leave your phone behind. You’ll be able to do even more with the cellular model.
Get Nike+ Run Club21 Go for a swim
Apple Watch Series 2 and up are waterproof and perfect for swimming. You’ll want to enable water lock before engaging in water-based activities from lock the screen. This will keep water from acting as input on the touch display. When you’re done, a twist of the Digital Crown will unlock the display and eject water from the microphone and speaker housing.
20 Mix and match
While the Apple Watch casing itself hasn’t really changed over the years, Apple offers multiple customization options. Users can select from a large array of factory bands and name brand bands; and there are countless bands available from third-parties. In addition a casings come in two sizes and in a variety of materials and colors. Apple also offers highly customizable faces.
While there are a lot of options available, I would love to see Apple open up the watch face to developers and users. I’d also like to see some different casing options down the road.
Try Apple’s online Apple Watch customizer to find the style that’s right for you.
19 Command an army
Tiny armies is a fun, simple-to-play strategy game in which players command a tiny army with swipes. You’ll need to overcome obstacles such as lakes, mountains, and forests as you attempt to vanquish the opposing army.
Get Tiny Armies18 Check on your home
With more and more security systems and cameras offering mobile support, there are a wide variety of options for people who want to secure their homes. With devices such as Canary you can check on your the status of your home using your Apple Watch and sound an alarm from your phone if needed.
Canary offers a view of your home—even at night—and motion detection. While it doesn’t support HomeKit (yet) we are always seeing improvements in the smart home security space.
Learn more about Canary17 Read the news
The Apple News app is available by default on your Apple Watch. Additionally, you can check out many third-party sources including the New York Times, CNN, and even curation platforms like Flipboard. With just your Apple Watch and the right apps you can stay up-to-date on the latest news from around the world.
Get New York Times Get CNN Learn more about Flipboard or get the app16 Tweet and be social
Twitter used to offer an Apple Watch app but it’s since been removed. You can still use Twitter from your wrist with the help of third-party options such as Tweetbot and Twitterrific.
In addition to Twitter, you can check out other social apps such as Instagram, WeChat, Telegram, and Facebook Messenger. There is also an app called buffer that lets you schedule posts for Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Pinterest, and more.
Additionally, you can use your watch as a walkie talkie with apps like Voxer and HeyTell. There are so many ways to stay social with Apple Watch.
Check out the App Store to find the apps that are right for you.
15 Control your car
There are many apps available from car manufacturers. While most of them aren’t great, they get the job done. I have Blue Link (Hyundai’s remote managment system) on my Hyundai Santa Fe which allows me to start, lock, and unlock the vehicle from my phone or watch.
With Blue Link you can also schedule oil changes, send destinations to your vehicle’s navigation system, adjust the climate control, and more.
Almost every major car brand offers some kind of mobile app or Apple Watch app for newer, well-equipped vehicles. Check the App Store to see if there’s and option that’s right for you.
14 Translate your words
Traveling to a new country can be difficult, especially if you’re still learning a new language. Whether you’re trying to speak to someone from out of town or traveling to a new destination, iTranslate Converse puts a translator on your wrist.
On Apple Watch Series 3 with a strong Internet connection the translations were quick and accurate; each translation only took a couple of seconds. The app lets you choose between 38 languages and automatically detects which language is being spoken. Just tap and speak and iTranslate Converse does the rest.
Get iTranslate Converse13 Check the score
You can ask Siri to check the score for a variety of sports events or you can download an app such as ESPN.
The ESPN app will you show you scores and news from your favorite teams. You can switch to your iPhone for even more information. In addition to ESPN, you can find a variety of sports apps for Apple Watch on the App Store; including, theScore, CBS Sports, and more.
12 Add or reschedule an appointment
To move a calendar event you can edit the event in the Calendar app on your wrist or you can ask Siri to move it for you. You can also create new calendar events in the app or with Siri. 1In addition to Apple’s Calendar app, many alternatives are available on the App Store. Find the one that’s right for you.
11 Gaze at the stars
If you’ve ever used Night Sky on your iPhone you know what a truly magical experience it is. Now imagine that, but smaller and on your wrist. Night Sky for Apple Watch asks you to locate the moon when you first open the app, after that it superimposes the constellations, planets, moon, sun, satellites, and more right on your wrist. Just move your watch to identify what’s what.
If you lower your wrist you’ll be presented with a compass view to help you find your way while star gazing. Whether your nuts about astronomy or just like gazing at the starry night sky, it’s easy to see why Apple named this app “Best of 2017.”
Get Night Sky10 Check your heart rate
All Apple Watches have a built in heart rate sensor that checks your BPM throughout the day and notifies you if it’s unusually high. Some third party apps like HeartWatch provide more details and customizable alerts.
Get HeartWatch9 Check your grocery list
Whether it’s a grocery list, a to do list, or your New Year’s resolutions, Apple’s Reminders app is the perfect checklist for your wrist. If you need a little more you can check out third-party alternatives like Things 3, Todoist, or OmniFocus 2.
8 Monitor your baby or toddler
Do you have an old iPod Touch or iPhone that’s gathering dust? Put it to work as a baby monitor with Cloud Baby Monitor. This unique app lets parents turn their old iOS device into a audio and visual baby monitor. You can play white noise or lullabies, speak to your child, or use the display as a night light with brightness control.
Once setup you can check on your baby from your Mac, iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch. You’ll even get notifications on your watch if movement is detected.
Learn more about Cloud Baby Monitor7 Get a ride
Need to stop from point A to point B quick and don’t have a car? No problem if you have your Apple Watch and the Uber or Lyft app installed. Both ride sharing services offer apps that let you see how far out the nearest car is and call it right from your wrist.
Get Lyft Get Uber6 Set an alarm
Just tell Siri “set an alarm for 5:00” or “wake me up at seven.” It’s that easy. You can also set timers, see the world clock, or use the stopwatch feature; it is a watch after all.
5 Take a photo
No one around to take a photo when you need it? No worries. Every Apple Watch includes a camera app that links to your iPhone. Just prop up your phone or buy a portable tripod, setup your shot, and use your watch to snap the perfect picture. You’ll get a real-time view on your wrist and the option to take the picture instantly or in three seconds. You can even force touch the display to toggle settings such as HDR, Live Photos, and flash on or off.
4 Give a presentation
With Apple Watch you can control your big presentation right from your wrist. Simply install the Apple Keynote or Microsoft PowerPoint app and you’ll be able to use your Apple Watch as a discreet remote.
Get Keynote Get PowerPoint3 Control your Apple TV
Not big on presentations but still enjoy controlling things from your wrist? If you have an Apple TV you can download the remote app to control your viewing experience with your Apple Watch. Learn more about controlling Apple TV or iTunes by clicking here.
2 Sound the alarm
Both iPhone and Apple Watch support Emergency SOS. Once setup, you can trigger a call to emergency services from your device. On Apple Watch, simply press and hold the side button (and keep holding it) to call emergency services and notify your emergency contacts. You can setup your emergency contacts in the Watch app under General > Emergency SOS.
1 Track your sleep
The battery life on Apple Watch is pretty good and the device charges quickly. If you want to use Apple Watch to track your sleep you can wear it to bed and charge it in the morning while getting ready. Personally I have an old Apple Watch I use for sleep tracking that I switch out mornings and nights. Apple Watch tracks sleep automatically and the data can be accessed in the Health app. For a more robust sleep tracking experience try apps like AutoSleep or Pillow.
Get AutoSleep Get Pillow? The possibilities are endless
Apple Watch provides a lot of functionality right on your wrist and Series 3 with Cellular + GPS opens you up to an entirely new wearables experience. This is just a list of a few of the things that are possible with Apple Watch and as Apple and third-party developers continue to add new functionality this device will just get better and better.
