Photos: 15 essential Apple Watch apps for busy professionals

Drafts 5

Until Apple releases its Voice Memos app for WatchOS, we're left turning to third-party apps. In the case of Drafts 5, that may be an improvement.

Drafts 5 is a free note-taking app for iOS and WatchOS that makes note-taking on your wrist dead simple: Just open the app, press the microphone button, dictate your note, tap Done, and watch the note show up in the app's inbox.

Notes can be tagged and sorted in a variety of ways, but those features are best done with the accompanying iOS app. The best feature of Drafts 5 on the Apple Watch is how simple and accurate it is--I use it regularly to make myself quick notes from my wrist and rarely touch the iOS app to sort them.

Drafts 5 is the newer, free upgrade to Drafts 4, which costs $4.99 on the App Store. Many of the features in Drafts 5 are new, but unfortunately some premium features that now require a subscription were a standard part of Drafts 4's price.

SEE: Apple Watch Series 4: Cheat sheet (TechRepublic)

Image: Apple/Agile Tortoise, Inc.

Hours

For many kinds of work (especially in tech) it's essential to keep track of time, and Hours is a cross-platform time tracking tool that can be a boon to those who frequently forget to log their hours on particular projects.

Using the Apple Watch version effectively requires setting up Hours on iOS, but once you do it's worth it: Hours will remind you to start and stop timers if you schedule certain things for certain times of the day, add notes to entries, and (for $7.99 a month) automatically syncs your entries to its cloud-based server.

Hours is also available for teams, so everyone in your office with an Apple Watch can benefit from this useful tool.

SEE: Apple Watch Series 4: Cheat sheet (TechRepublic)

Image: Apple/Hours LLC

IFTTT

I've covered IFTTT for TechRepublic before, but I didn't mention how useful IFTTT can be on the Apple Watch.

You won't be able to create workflows on your Apple Watch or use it to execute complicated tasks; what you can do is trigger single-tap actions just like those in the IFTTT iOS widget, making the WatchOS version of IFTTT essentially an extension of the iOS widget.

SEE: Apple Watch Series 4: Cheat sheet (TechRepublic)

Image: Apple/IFTTT Inc.

Microsoft PowerPoint

If you've ever given a PowerPoint presentation, you know how important it is to have a reliable remote to move through your slides; you probably also know the presentation remotes can be unreliable and apt to disappear.

Microsoft's PowerPoint app for iOS comes with a WatchOS version that makes the Apple Watch act just like a presentation remote, allowing users to advance and reverse slides, restart presentations, or end a slide show.

Professionals who have an Apple Watch and make frequent use of PowerPoint shouldn't leave home without this app.

SEE: Apple Watch Series 4: Cheat sheet (TechRepublic)

Image: Apple/Microsoft

Circa

Business is increasingly global, and that means collaborating with people that are often working at very different times of the day. Circa makes that easier with its iOS and Apple Watch app.

For $3.99 Circa users get a visual look at work schedules around the world: Set a city, specify business hours, and look at Circa's clock to see if your overseas colleagues are there when you need them.

SEE: Apple Watch Series 4: Cheat sheet (TechRepublic)

Image: Apple/Kostiantyn Zuiev

Chirp

The official Twitter app has abandoned the Apple Watch, so devout tweeters need to look to third-party applications to fill the gap. Chirp is one such app, and it does a great job of turning the Apple Watch into a Twitter machine.

Chirp is free, though a one-time in-app purchase unlocks the ability to tweet using dictation on the Apple Watch.

SEE: Apple Watch Series 4: Cheat sheet (TechRepublic)

Image: Apple/Will Bishop

​Clicker

There are various reasons why you might need to keep count of things during the day (e.g., the number of conference attendees, or the number of bugs resolved), and Clicker is a simple Apple Watch app that lets you do just that. Clicker only has one button, which when tapped adds to a running total tracked by the app.

SEE: Apple Watch Series 4: Cheat sheet (TechRepublic)

Image: Apple/The Iconfactory

TripIt

Keeping track of a travel itinerary can be difficult, but TripIt makes it easier. This Apple Watch app will compile trip information including flights, hotel reservations, and more into one list simply by forwarding pertinent reservation emails to it. TripIt will also ping you with alerts, changes you may not know about (gates changes, etc.), travel time reminders, and more. It's one handy app to have on your wrist.

SEE: Ebook: Essential travel tips for business pros (Tech Pro Research)

Image: Apple/TripIt

Spark

If the default email client for the Apple Watch lacks features and is difficult to work with, then Spark is the complete opposite. Not only does Spark filter emails to make finding important messages easier, it also allows you to snooze emails to get reminded of them later, add text formatting like bolding and italics, and even dictate full emails from your wrist.

SEE: Apple Watch Series 4: Cheat sheet (TechRepublic)

Image: Apple/Readdle Inc.

Just Press Record

Just Press Record is a simple app, at least on the Apple Watch: You tap the record button and start talking, listening, or making a note. That may not seem like much for $4.99, but it comes with additional features, specifically speech-to-text and cloud syncing, that make it worth it for business professionals who are looking for a solid note-taking and recording app.

SEE: Apple Watch Series 4: Cheat sheet (TechRepublic)

Image: Apple/Open Planet Software

ETA

It's happened to all business travelers: You're in an unfamiliar city, and you have no idea if you're going to be late to a cross-town destination. If you had ETA on your Apple Watch, you would know.

ETA gives travel times to any destination you ask it to, and it adjusts that ETA in real time based on traffic conditions. It also uses historic traffic data to inform you if you'll have an easier time getting somewhere later in the day, and it does all of that right from your watch face.

SEE: Apple Watch Series 4: Cheat sheet (TechRepublic)

Image: Apple/Eastwood

Find Near Me

You never know what you might need to find in a new city, and searching online for a particular thing, like a grocery store, pharmacy, or bank, might not take you to the nearest option.

Find Near Me is designed to eliminate those headaches and can locate nearly anything you need to search for. It can locate Wi-Fi hotspots, taxi companies, ATMs, hospitals--you name it. If you want to be sure you don't get confused in a new location, you should install Find Near Me.

SEE: Apple Watch Series 4: Cheat sheet (TechRepublic)

Image: Apple/XLabz Technologies Pvt. Ltd.

Cheatsheet Widget

Apple Watch faces can display a lot of information, but what if you want to get something, namely a bit of custom text, on your watch face? Cheatsheet Widget is what you need.

This fantastic little app allows you to create custom watch face widgets that say anything you want--hotel room numbers, frequently-missed highway exits, the name of a person you're having a meeting with, or anything else you need to remember at a glance.

SEE: Apple Watch Series 4: Cheat sheet (TechRepublic)

Image: Apple/Christopher Adam Overholtzer

Fantastical 2

If you aren't satisfied with the basic Apple Watch calendar app, you aren't alone--it doesn't give the flexibility, customization, or essential options busy professionals need.

Thankfully, there's Fantastical 2, which does what the stock WatchOS calendar app does not. If you consult your daily agenda on your watch with any frequency, you need Fantastical 2.

SEE: Apple Watch Series 4: Cheat sheet (TechRepublic)

Image: Apple/Flexibits Inc.

Flipboard

I love the fact that Apple has added the News app to the Apple Watch, but I don't like how limited it is. If you're a news junkie who is dissatisfied like me, you should give Flipboard a try.

Not only is the basic Flipboard app great for curating news items, its Apple Watch app stands out by delivering you headlines you actually want to see instead of the basics that Apple funnels to the watch. Be sure to check out TechRepublic on Flipboard while you're at it.

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Also see

• Mobile device computing policy (Tech Pro Research)
• How Apple Watch saved my life (ZDNet)
• Apple launches Apple Watch Series 4, doubles down on digital health and wellness (ZDNet)
• 3 ways Apple Watch Series 4 opens the door for a new breed of health apps (Download.com)
• Microsoft Authenticator app comes to Apple Watch to offer password-free logins (Download.com)
• Heart Analyzer app provides visual data on your heart rate (Download.com)

Image: Apple/Flipboard Inc.