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.»

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.

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.

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

Amazon Speeds Up Delivery Even More With 1- and 3-Hour Options

The retailer says the one-hour option is available in hundreds of cities, with discounted shipping for Prime members.

Same-day delivery apparently isn’t fast enough for some Amazon shoppers. The retail giant said on Tuesday it’s adding new shipping options that will get products to front doors within a one- or three-hour window.

The company said in its announcement that the one-hour option is available in hundreds of cities across the US, while the three-hour option is now live in more than 2,000 areas. Amazon’s web page at amazon.com/getitfast shows whether those options are available to shoppers for their location. More than 90,000 products will be available for those shipping windows, the company said.

For those who can’t get those services (including the author of this post, who lives between Austin and San Antonio in Texas), a message will display: «3-hour delivery is currently unavailable. Check back at a later time or shop products with Same-Day delivery below.»

Pricing for the faster delivery options is not cheap: It’ll cost you $20 for one-hour delivery and $15 for three-hour delivery for those without an Amazon Prime account, or $10 and $5 for customers who subscribe to Prime.

Last year, the company rolled out faster Amazon delivery options to 4,000 additional areas.

In a video of the podcast Learn and Be Curious with Doug Herrington, hosted by Amazon’s CEO of worldwide stores, Kandace Kapps, the director of the company’s same-day strategy team, spoke in more detail about the challenges of fast shipping. Kapps discussed shifts in customer buying habits over the last few years, such as more people buying household essentials like toilet paper on Amazon.

She said that Amazon can deliver so quickly by placing same-day delivery hubs close to customers in metro areas and by getting products ready to ship within 15 minutes, aided by warehouse robots.

«I think customers are going to continue to get magically surprised by how fast we can deliver to their doorstop,» Kapps said.

Herrington said fast shipping increases sales: «When we speed up the service, the probability that somebody buys a product from us goes up.»

Other retailers, including Walmart, have been adding same-day delivery options or exploring other ways to speed up shipping times to compete with Amazon.

Removing buyers’ moments of hesitation

Part of Amazon’s strategy, which has involved a massive buildout of locations, deployment of thousands of trucks, deals with other delivery services and investment in logistics software, is actually pretty simple: being there when people need last-minute items or make impulse buys.

«It’s about removing the last moment where you would’ve reconsidered the purchase,» said Stephanie Carls, retail insights expert at coupon and promotional-code website RetailMeNot, a sibling site of CNET. «It changes how you shop, not just how fast you get things.»

Carls said that Amazon’s super-fast delivery is removing the timeframe when people might change their minds about a purchase.

«There used to be a gap between deciding to buy something and actually having it. That’s when you’d price check, rethink it, or decide you didn’t need it after all,» she said. «This closes that gap.»

The retail expert said that competitors, including Walmart and Target, have been speeding up delivery times in some markets. Still, they’re not matching Amazon’s scale or product range at those speeds or levels of consistency.

«And that’s what starts to make everyone else feel slow,» Carls said. «Amazon’s advantage is how tightly connected its technology, inventory and delivery networks are, which makes this level of speed more repeatable.»

Technologies

Dog Health Goes Digital With New AI Chatbot

Fi Intelligence allows you to ask questions of a specially tailored pet health chatbot, but it’s not meant to replace vet visits.

It might be time to rethink what it means to be sick as a dog. On Tuesday, Fi, a smart pet technology company, announced a new AI-powered chatbot to help owners stay on top of their dog’s health using a blend of personal information and generalized dog breed data.

The AI agent, which the company is calling Fi Intelligence, is integrated directly into the Fi app. It has access to all the information gathered about your dog across the entire suite of Fi products, including the Fi Series 3 Plus and Fi Mini dog collars, as well as information and documents uploaded by the pet owner. The service is for dogs only (not cats, rabbits or other pets).

If you already own a Fi smart collar, existing data will be incorporated into the AI agent’s dataset to help it answer your questions.

When creating Fi Intelligence, the company identified a multitude of common questions that dog owners have, including whether their animal friend is walking or sleeping enough, or scratching more than usual. The chatbot was created to help owners find answers to these questions quickly and easily, according to Fi.

Fi designed its agent to answer these questions using a mix of general information about a dog’s breed, personal information and biometric data gathered by Fi smart pet collars.

Pet owners can ask the chatbot questions in plain English and get back detailed responses. Fi Intelligence is equipped to answer general questions, contrast your dog’s current data to previous time periods and compare your dog’s data to other dogs of the same breed.

Fi says its chatbot is different from general-purpose AI agents because it has been trained on a proprietary dataset containing «the largest repository of real-world canine activity, sleep and behavior data in the world.»

Fi Intelligence doesn’t replace a trip to the vet — and the company stresses it’s not supposed to. Rather, the agent is supposed to grant owners «informed confidence» about their dog’s health and can help them «show up [to the vet] with specific, documented observations drawn from weeks of continuous data.»

«The strongest signal from our beta was that owners aren’t using this to replace their vet,» said Fi’s Vice President of Product Darrell Stone. «They’re using it to show up better prepared.»

According to Fi, the Fi Intelligence integration will provide the most complete dog health profile available in the app so far. Fi Intelligence is available to all Fi members immediately.

Technologies

Nvidia Teases DLSS 5 and Gamers Aren’t Impressed

The new AI technology is making some big changes to video game graphics that hardly anyone seems to like.

Nvidia opened its GTC conference with a keynote by CEO Jensen Huang, revealing the company’s latest tech. Among the raft of the company’s AI developments, gamers were treated to the imminent version of its AI-powered upscaling and optimization technology, DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling), touted as the «biggest breakthrough in computer graphics».

Nvidia published a video illustrating how DLSS 5 can enhance graphics in Resident Evil Requiem, Starfield and other games, showing before-and-after takes. But gamers weren’t thrilled. In fact, the response to DLSS 5 resembles more of a collective backlash, replete with memes, ridicule and outrage.

Gamers were quick to point out that DLSS 5 transformed the original graphics into something vastly different. Some called the visuals «AI slop» because they look like «yassified» AI-generated filters.

Many worry that DLSS 5 could deviate from a creator’s specific artistic vision. Critics also fear that if this technology becomes the industry standard, video game graphics might start to look the same, losing their unique visual identity.

«Everything about this is a betrayal of these game’s artistry,» said YouTuber The Sphere Hunter in a post on X Monday. «Painting over handcrafted, intentional 3D art with shiny, wrinkly, sunken-in, porous, puckered, fraudulent, filtered nonsense is deeply disrespectful. If you want this, just watch gen-AI videos all day.»

Countless memes mocking the tech’s exaggerated features flooded the internet. Others on social media parodied the effects DLSS 5 could produce in other games.

Ok, you convinced us, NVIDIA DLSS 5 is coming to «Copycat» too 😅 pic.twitter.com/WT2qRRz9EC

— Copycat // OUT NOW 😻 (@GameCopycat) March 17, 2026

In a Q&A on Tuesday, Huang addressed the backlash from gamers, calling them «completely wrong.» Huang underlined that DLSS 5 «enhances and adds generative capability, but it doesn’t change the artistic control» and that «it’s in the direct control of the game developer.»

The team at Digital Foundry, which specializes in game technology and hardware reviews, called it «disruptive and transformative» but was generally positive about it, though they saw some hiccups.

«[The images] looked a little bit uncanny, I would say, but definitely the overall portrayal of those characters is much more sophisticated,» said Oliver Mackenzie, video producer and writer for Digital Foundry.

Bethesda’s official X account replied to comments from members of Digital Foundry about Starfield and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered, both published by Bethesda.

«This is a very early look, and our art teams will be further adjusting the lighting and final effect to look the way we think works best for each game. This will all be under our artists’ control, and totally optional for players,» the publisher said.

DLSS 5 is set to be released sometime in the fall.

What is DLSS?

Nvidia first released its DLSS tech back in 2018 with its RTX 2080 card: The RTX architecture introduced the Tensor cores, which are essential for accelerating the calculations used by the DLSS AI. The deep learning technology was designed to upscale images and video from low resolution in real time to achieve higher frame rates.

Gamers weren’t impressed at first, but later versions of the technology did perform better in games that supported it. DLSS 4, released last year and tweaked to 4.5 as of January, made significant improvements to detail rendering, reducing motion artifacts, boosting frame rates, and generating more realistic lighting via path tracing (which incorporates interactions with ray-traced lighting).

What does DLSS 5 do?

DLSS 5 works a bit differently than previous versions of the technology. According to Nvidia, DLSS 5 shifts from processing simple pixels to understanding 3D elements. By deconstructing characters into specific components — such as skin, hair and clothing — the AI can render them more consistently. This results in faster performance and much more realistic details, especially for textures and lighting.

Game developers control how DLSS 5 enhances images and to what degree, ensuring it matches the game’s aesthetic. The demo video showcased some positive enhancements, but others looked like sweeping changes to the characters and the environment.

Which games will support DLSS 5 at launch?

On Monday, Nvidia released a list of games slated to support DLSS 5:

AION 2
Assassin’s Creed Shadows
Black State
Cinder City
Delta Force
Hogwarts Legacy
Justice
Naraka: Bladepoint
NTE: Neverness to Everness
Phantom Blade Zero
Resident Evil Requiem
Sea of Remnants
Starfield
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered
Where Winds Meet

What cards will support DLSS 5?

Nvidia has yet to provide a list of GPUs that will support the new technology. In an FAQ, the company says it will release a list of supported cards closer to its release.