Notes

SparksLab Global Venture, Apple Watch: the best apps

SparksLab Global Venture - Ever since Apple opened up its WatchKit software in November last year, third-party developers have been beavering away to adapt and create a whole raft of new apps for Apple`s brand new wearable platform.

These are the best Apple Watch apps available for everything from navigating your way to work, to cooking a meal in a hurry.

Best for navigation:

Citymapper
Old favourite Citymapper returns in wrist-optimised form, working out fastest routes to destinations via walking, driving and public transport. It also alerts you when you`ve arrived with a gentle tap.

Find your way
This app from global travel search engine Skyscanner provides travellers with directions back to their hotel when in their destination. Once a traveller ‘favourites’ a hotel within the Skyscanner app on their iPhone, they can then sync with their Apple Watch to access the direction service.

Best for travel:

Booking Now
Booking Now, which draws from Booking.com’s selection of over 625,000 properties in more than 75,000 destinations, allows travellers to choose and book the nearest relevant hotel in just one touch.

British Airways
View a detailed summary of your next flight, the flight number, route, departure time, flight status, a countdown to the departure time and the weather at the destination.

Trainline
Trainline’s app for Apple Watch enables customers to check live train times, platform information, check their train is on route and access mobile ticketing straight from their wrist.

Uber
Demonstrated by Apple`s Kevin Lynch during the Spring Forward event, Uber on Apple Watch is the easy and serepticious way to hail a taxi during a night out, with no stopping at an ATM.

Best for fitness:

Strava
Pair the Watch with your iPhone to keep tabs on your average speed, distance travelled and set goals during a workout.

Lifesum
Lifesum is a useful way of tracking the amount of food and water you consume during the day, juxtaposed with the amount of exercise you`ve had.

RunKeeper
RunKeeper`s handy goal-setting features, such as setting limits on how long you walk or run within a defined workout time, comes to your wrist.

Best for productivity

CommitTo3
CommitTo3 allows the user to set three important tasks for the day, and assign groups of friends, family or colleagues to complete them collectively - complete with `gentle reminder` notifications. Either a wonderful way of completing tedious activities, or incredibly annoying.

Evernote
Managing your schedule has never been easier with Evernote for Apple Watch, allowing you to dictate notes, search through recently-added content and conveniently continue reading notes on your iPhone.

Mint Personal Finance
Prevent yourself sinking ever deeper into your overdraft with Mint Personal Finance. The app helps you set monthly spending goals and updates you with how much money you`ve got left over at the end of the week.

Best for procrastination:

Twitter
Keep an eye on the latest issue Twitter`s getting in a flap about from your wrist.

BoxPop
Pass the time on your commute by `popping` L-shaped boxes through 40 levels of BoxPop.

Rules!
Daily brain workout Rules! keeps your grey cells active through 10 game stages, with a detailed breakdown of your progress.

Best for creativity:

Instagram
Indicate your approval for filtered pictures of other people`s breakfasts through Instagram for Apple Watch.

Procreate Pocket
Draw a masterpiece on your iPhone display by using the Watch as a remote paint palette for selecting new colours, brush thicknesses and rubbing out any mistakes.

Best for food:

Boiled Egg Timer
Select the size of your egg, how runny or firm you`d like the yolk and potter away to your heart`s content until the Boiled Egg Timer app alerts you. One of those apps you never knew you could live without, possibly.

Green Kitchen
The Green Kitchen is designed to help guide you through cooking healthy recipes when paired with your iPhone, including by sending you alerts when a timed step in the recipe has come to an end. The slightly sinister notification “Your quinoa should have little tails by now” is one of the examples included on its website.

The Whole Pantry
This app talks your through each part of a recipe step-by-step, bypassing the need to pull your iPhone out every two minutes.

Just Eat
Just Eat’s Apple Watch app will enable customers to access more than 22,000 takeaways across the UK and order their food on the go.

Best for shopping

Ocado
The app makes it easy to place and track orders via Apple Watch. Items can be added to orders just by speaking into the Watch and real-time order status updates are visible at a glance of the wrist.

ASOS
The ASOS app makes use of the Apple Watch `Handoff` feature, enabling customers to add saved items directly to their bag and notifying them when a product comes back in stock or drops in price.