Technologies
Don’t Bother With Third-Party Apple Watch Apps
There are plenty of apps for the Apple Watch, but Apple’s native apps are still among the best.

Apple Watch Series 8 is an iterative upgrade over the Series 7. With each new iteration, the Apple Watch gets more advanced. It’s specifically noteworthy when it comes to tracking your health and fitness. If you want to take advantage of the best Apple Watch apps, we have some pretty straightforward advice: Skip the App Store and stick with the watch’s native apps.
Companies including Amazon, eBay, Target, Slack and TripAdvisor have dropped support for Apple Watch apps, but those services are better-suited for our phones, tablets and laptops anyway. What does matter is the built-in Activity tracker, Messages and Phone apps — the things we want on hand for a quick and convenient glance, regardless of which Apple Watch version we’re currently sporting.
«The watch is really about convenience,» said Ray Wang, principal analyst and founder of Constellation Research. «You’re not going to spend so much screen time on your watch. So I think the secret of building a good Apple Watch app is to think of it as an accessory in addition to something. Very few people use it as a standalone unless it’s for fitness or health or some kind of monitoring.»
Read more: Set Up Your New Apple Watch in Just a Few Taps
When the Apple Watch launched in 2015, it had 3,000 apps available to download. Today, there are more than 20,000 apps — 44 of which are built into the wearable. While watches weren’t an in-demand accessory in general back in 2015, the Apple Watch proved to be a useful tool for checking messages, the weather and reminders, Wang added — all of which are already built into the device.
Here are several native Apple Watch apps that you may not already be using.
1. Sleep
The Apple Watch was late to the game when it came to sleep tracking — a crucial wellness feature that rivals like Fitbit have offered for years. While Apple’s Sleep app may not be as comprehensive as the sleep monitoring available on other devices, it’s still a great way to keep track of your slumber and get into a regular bedtime routine. When wearing your Apple Watch overnight, it’ll tell you how much time you’ve spent asleep while in bed as well as your sleeping respiratory rate. That latter feature is a new addition that Apple launched with WatchOS 8 in September.
2. Wallet
The Apple Watch is designed to make it so that you don’t have to reach for your phone as often, and the Wallet app is one of the best examples. It allows you to store things like credit cards, boarding passes and movie tickets on your wrist once you’ve added them to the Wallet app on your phone. That means you won’t have to dig into your purse or pocket to make a quick purchase or board your flight. Apple is also expanding what the Wallet app can do in WatchOS 8, which introduces the ability to add home keys and identification cards to your watch.
3. Messages
The Messages app is one of the most basic and fundamental Apple Watch apps, but it’s also among the most useful. As the name implies, Messages allows you to read and respond to text messages directly from your wrist. Your phone is still the best tool for sending long text messages, but the Apple Watch can come in handy for sending short, time-sensitive replies when you don’t have a moment to reach for your phone. If you have the Apple Watch Series 7, the latest model, you’ll be able to respond to texts using the device’s new QWERTY keyboard, which is much easier than using the Scribble function.
4. Noise
If you have an Apple Watch Series 4 or later, you can use the Noise app to measure the ambient sound in your environment. If the decibel level has risen to a point where your hearing could be affected, the app can notify you with a tap on your wrist.
Read more: Apple Watch Series 7 Review: A Slightly Better Smartwatch Than Last Year’s
5. Cycle Tracking
Women can use the Cycle Tracking app to log details about your menstrual cycle, including flow information and symptoms such as headaches or cramps. Using that data, the app can alert you to when it predicts your next period or fertile window is about to start.
6. ECG
If you have an Apple Watch Series 4 or later, you have an electrical heart rate sensor that works with the ECG app to take an electrocardiogram (sometimes called an EKG by cardiologists). You’ll also need an iPhone 6S or later, and both the phone and the watch will need to be on the latest version of iOS and WatchOS, respectively. It’s also not available in all regions.
7. News
The News app will help you keep up with current events on the fly, showing you stories that it selects based on your interests. However, it’s not available in all areas.
8. Mindfulness
The Apple Watch has long offered breathing exercises. But WatchOS 8’s Mindfulness app, which replaced the Breathe app, adds a new option to the Apple Watch’s relaxation repertoire: reflections that prompt you to pause and think about special moments in your life. You’re still able to access Breathe sessions from this app, but the new Reflect option just gives you another way to take a break from your day.
9. Remote
If you have an Apple TV, you can use your watch as another remote control — assuming both devices are connected to the same Wi-Fi network. Use the Remote app to swipe around on the watch face and move through the Apple TV menu options, and play or pause shows.
10. Camera
You can’t take a picture with your watch itself. But with the Camera app, your watch can act as a remote control for your iPhone’s camera. Use it to help take selfies or start recording on your phone across the room, so you can finally get everyone in that big group shot.
11. Walkie-Talkie
The Walkie-Talkie app lets you use your watch as a walkie-talkie to chat with another person wearing an Apple Watch. You press a button to talk, and release it to listen to the reply. The app isn’t available in all regions, and both participants need to have connectivity through a Bluetooth connection to the iPhone, Wi-Fi or cellular. You also have to accept an invitation to connect with someone through the app — they can’t just start talking to you.
12. Voice Memos
Like on the iPhone, you can use the Voice Memos app on your Apple Watch to record personal notes and things to remember while on the go. The voice memos you record on the watch will automatically sync to any other iOS devices where you’re signed in with the same Apple ID.
Read more: The Best Apple iPad Apps of All Time: Media Players, Graphics Tools and More
The future of native Apple Watch apps
The collection of native Apple Watch apps is likely far from complete. We saw the addition of the Sleep app and Blood Oxygen app with last year’s respective WatchOS 7 software update and Apple Watch Series 6. And if reports are to be believed, Apple has broader ambitions in the health and wellness space that we could see in the years to come. The company is reportedly working on blood pressure and thermometer tools for the Apple Watch, according to The Wall Street Journal. Apple is also working on a blood-sugar sensor that could help diabetics manage their glucose levels, Bloomberg reported last year, although it says this functionality likely won’t be commercially available for several years.
Technologies
Tariffs Explained: Latest on Trump’s Shifting Import Tax Plan, and What It Means
Technologies
Apple, I’m (Sky) Blue About Your iPhone 17 Air Color
Commentary: The rumored new hue of the iPhone 17 Air is more sky blah than sky blue.

I can’t help but feel blue about the latest rumor that Apple’s forthcoming iPhone 17 Air will take flight in a subtle, light-hued color called sky blue.
Sky blue isn’t a new color for Apple. It’s the featured shade of the current M4 MacBook Air, a shimmer of cerulean so subtle as to almost be missed. It’s silver left too close to an aquarium; silver that secretly likes to think it’s blue but doesn’t want everyone else to notice.
Do Apple employees get to go outside and see a real blue sky? It’s actually vivid, you can check for yourself. Perhaps the muted sky blue color reflects a Bay Area late winter/early spring frequent layer of clouds like we typically see here in Seattle.
«Who cares?» you might find yourself saying. «Everyone gets a case anyway.» I hear you and everyone else who’s told me that. But design-focused Apple is as obsessive about colors as they are about making their devices thinner. And I wonder if their heads are in the clouds about which hues adorn their pro products.
Making the case for a caseless color iPhone
I’m more invested in this conversation than most — I’m one of those freaks who doesn’t wrap my phone in a case. I find cases bulky and superfluous, and I like to be able to see Apple’s design work. Also, true story, I’ve broken my iPhone screen only twice: First when it was in a «bumper» that Apple sent free in response to the iPhone 4 you’re-holding-it-wrong Antennagate fiasco, and second when trying to take long exposure starry night photos using what I didn’t realize was a broken tripod mount. My one-week-old iPhone 13 Pro slipped sideways and landed screen-first on a pointy rock. A case wouldn’t have saved it.
My current model is an iPhone 16 Pro in black titanium — which I know seems like avoiding color entirely — but previously I’ve gone for colors like blue titanium and deep purple. I wanted to like deep purple the most but it came across as, in the words of Patrick Holland in his iPhone 14 Pro review, «a drab shade of gray or like Grimace purple,» depending on the light.
Pros can be bold, too
Maybe the issue is too many soft blues. Since the iPhone Pro age began with the iPhone 11 Pro, we’ve seen variations like blue titanium (iPhone 15 Pro), sierra blue (iPhone 13 Pro) and pacific blue (iPhone 12 Pro).
Pacific blue is the boldest of the bunch, if by bold you mean dark enough to discern from silver, but it’s also close enough to that year’s graphite color that seeing blue depends on the surrounding lighting. By comparison, the blue (just «blue») color of the iPhone 12 was unmistakably bright blue.
In fact, the non-Pro lines have embraced vibrant colors. It’s as if Apple is equating «pro» with «sophisticated,» as in «A real pro would never brandish something this garish.» I see this in the camera world all the time: If it’s not all-black, it’s not a «serious» camera.
And yet I know lots of pros who are not sophisticated — proudly so. People choose colors to express themselves, so forcing that idea of professionalism through color feels needlessly restrictive. A bright pink iPhone 16 might make you smile every time you pick it up but then frown because it doesn’t have a telephoto camera.
Color is also important because it can sway a purchase decision. «I would buy a sky blue iPhone yesterday,» my colleague Gael Cooper texted after the first rumor popped online. When each new generation of iPhones arrive, less technically different than the one before, a color you fall in love with can push you into trading in your perfectly-capable model for a new one.
And lest you think Apple should just stick with black and white for its professional phones: Do you mean black, jet black, space black, midnight black, black titanium, graphite or space gray? At least the lighter end of the spectrum has stuck to just white, white titanium and silver over the years.
Apple never got ahead by being beige
I’m sure Apple has reams of studies and customer feedback that support which colors make it to production each year. Like I said, Apple’s designers are obsessive (in a good way). And I must remind myself that a sky blue iPhone 17 Air is a rumored color on a rumored product so all the usual caveats apply.
But we’re talking about Apple here. The scrappy startup that spent more than any other company on business cards at the time because each one included the old six-color Apple logo. The company that not only shaped the first iMac like a tipped-over gumdrop, that not only made the case partially see-through but then made that cover brilliant Bondi blue.
Embrace the iPhone colors, Apple.
If that makes you nervous, don’t worry: Most people will put a case on it anyway.
Technologies
Astronomers Say There’s an Increased Possibility of Life on This Distant Planet
Using the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers are working to confirm potential evidence of life on a distant exoplanet dubbed K2-18b.

Astronomers are nearing a statistically significant finding that could confirm the potential signs of life detected on the distant exoplanet K2-18b are no accident.
The team of astronomers, led by the University of Cambridge, used data from the James Webb Space Telescope (which has only been in use since the end of 2021) to detect chemical traces of dimethyl sulfide (DMS) and/or dimethyl disulfide (DMDS), which they say can only be produced by life such as phytoplankton in the sea.
According to the university, «the results are the strongest evidence yet that life may exist on a planet outside our solar system.»
The findings were published this week in the Astrophysical Journal Letters and point to the possibility of an ocean on this planet’s surface, which scientists have been hoping to discover for years. In the abstract for the paper, the team says, «The possibility of hycean worlds, with planet-wide oceans and H2-rich atmospheres, significantly expands and accelerates the search for habitable environments elsewhere.»
Not everyone agrees, however, that what the team found proves there’s life on the exoplanet.
Science writer and OpenMind Magazine founder Corey S. Powell posted about the findings on Bluesky, writing, «The potential discovery of alien life is so enticing that it drags even reputable outlets into running naive or outright misleading stories.» He added, «Here we go again with planet K2-18b.Um….there’s strong evidence of non-biological sources of the molecule DMS.»
K2-18b is 124 light-years away and much larger than Earth (more than eight times our mass), but smaller than Neptune. The search for signs of even basic life on a planet like this increases the chances that there are more planets like Earth that may be inhabitable, with temperatures and atmospheres that could sustain human-like lifeforms. The team behind the paper hopes that more study with the James Webb Space Telescope will help confirm their initial findings.
More research to do on finding life on K2-18b
The exoplanet K2-18b is not the only place where scientists are exploring the possibility of life, and this research is still an early step in the process, said Christopher Glein, a geochemist, planetary researcher and lead scientist at San Antonio’s Southwest Research Institute. Excitement over the significance of the research, he said, should be tempered.
«We need to be careful here,» Glein said. «It appears that there is something in the data that can’t be explained, and DMS/DMDS can provide an explanation. But this detection is stretching the limits of JWST’s capabilities.»
Glein added, «Further work is needed to test whether these molecules are actually present. We also need complementary research assessing the abiotic background on K2-18b and similar planets. That is, the chemistry that can occur in the absence of life in this potentially exotic environment. We might be seeing evidence of some cool chemistry rather than life.»
The TRAPPIST-1 planets, he said, are being researched as potentially habitable, as is LHS 1140b, which he said «is another astrobiologically significant exoplanet, which might be a massive ocean world.»
As for K2-18b, Glein said many more tests need to be performed before there’s consensus on life existing on it.
«Finding evidence of life is like prosecuting a case in the courtroom,» Glein said. «Multiple independent lines of evidence are needed to convince the jury, in this case the worldwide scientific community.» He added, «If this finding holds up, then that’s Step 1.»
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