My Favorite Apple Watch Apps and Features

I’m a gadget person, there’s no doubt about it, so I pretty much wanted an Apple watch from the moment I saw them. Dave gave me one for my birthday this year and I LOVE it. As a busy mom/ wife/ doctor/ business owner, I love things that save me time and make my life more efficient. I also love things that help me stay organized. Here are my favorite Apple watch apps and features:

1. I love that it allows me to be hands free
At the risk of sounding like the laziest person ever who just can’t summon up the energy and willpower to pull her phone out of her pocket when it rings, I do love how hands free the watch allows me to be. As soon as a text message or Facebook PM come through, I can have a quick glance and see who it’s from and what it’s about. I know immediately if it requires my attention right at that second or not. If the phone rings and I want to answer it, I can do that directly from the watch itself. Granted the phone has to be in the vicinity, but if I’m in the playroom with Valentina and my phone is in the living room, I can use my watch for a quick response without having to break away from what I’m doing.

For returning texts, it gives a couple of standard responses to choose from – “yes”, “no”, “thank you” – but then I can also record a response by voice and it’ll send it either as a voice message or text message. It even understands my accent and gets it right 100% of the time (not like Siri who clearly doesn’t understand an Aussie/ Brit/ American blended accent!). Granted, Facebook and Messenger are not supported so I can’t respond to PM’s from the watch itself, but to me it’s still handy having the alerts and being able to see incoming PM’s.

I love listening to my voicemail when I’m walking home from work too – I’m usually doing the race walk at 5.57 pm, hoping to make it home before I hear the church bells chime signaling to me that I’m late again for the nanny, with my bag over my shoulder, Harry Winston’s leash in one hand, a bag of Harry’s poop in the other hand. If I coordinate it well enough I can just push a button on the watch and be listening on my way, whereas there’s no way I could hold the phone itself to get that task done.

2. The less I pull my phone out, the less my toddler sees and wants it

This really says it all. It’s not that my child lusts after my phone every single time she sees it, or I use it, but let’s face it, when I see “phone”, she sees “starfall app”, or starts dancing around because she wants to watch “Happy” (minion edition) on YouTube! It’s not that she doesn’t want to play with the watch, mind you, but we established that as off limits from the get-go.

3. I can see my running stats on my wrist easily, along with my heart rate

This mostly applies to heart rate right now, as I love to run, but given that for half the month I’m thinking I might be pregnant, I want to make sure my heart rate is not going over a certain rate. During those really hot, humid days we had recently, that was very helpful as my poor little heart thought it was going to burst right out of my chest. I like to glance at pace and elapsed time too. There is also an app that tracks how much sitting and standing I’ve done, to monitor if I’m being active enough overall. I find that a bit obnoxious actually so I’ll probably turn that part of it off.

4. I can have Evernote directly on the watch

I’ve just discovered Evernote recently, but what I love is that when I’m out and about, and have a thought, an idea, or remember something I need to do, I can quickly record a voice memo on my watch. I use this the most when I’m out running too, as I listen to podcasts and YouTube videos when I run. If I’m listening to a podcast that gives a good website, book or any other resource that I want to remember, I quickly put it into a voice memo in Evernote where I can quickly access it later. I’m forever having things pop into my head that I need to do, a patient I need to follow up with, invitations to a party I need to RSVP to, things we need at the grocery store – and this allows me to get them down before poof! they’re gone again.

5. I get access to PostMates updates

PostMates has fast become one of my favorite things. I mean, I can order food from absolutely anywhere and they’ll bring it right to us. It’s not that I mind driving to pick up take away, but when you have a toddler that you have to load in and out, it just becomes that bit more of a hassle. I’m happy to pay someone a few bucks to deliver it. We have used it a ton in the last few weeks. While I have to place the order on my phone directly, my watch will give me updates about where our driver is and the ETA of our food, then again when they’ve arrived.

There are a few down sides with the watch. One is that I might fry myself with EMF’s, but I’m kind of in denial about that. It definitely requires charging every night to make sure the battery gets through the day. And while bands are easily changeable, they’re EXPENSIVE! I had my sights on a pretty pink leather one, but it’s $249 – for the band!!! I’ll have to put that on my Christmas wish list. As I mentioned, Facebook and Messenger are not supported at this time. There are many apps that don’t seem to be supported.

Having said all of that, for my purposes it’s basic functioning gives me plenty to be happy about and I’m a huge fan of the Apple watch.