One of the biggest niches Apple competes for in the smartwatch game is fitness utility. Per user reviews, these are the top Apple Watch fitness apps.
The Apple Watch continues to be one of Apple’s best products, even if its latest iterations (like the Apple Watch Series 10) are only marginal improvements. It isn’t just a way to get notifications on your wrist. It’s a thoughtful health tool that inspires you to improve your lifestyle. By default, it reminds you to get up and move around with stand reminders, logs your workout and activity behavior with fun activity rings, tracks your sleep habits in great detail, sets a 20-second timer when washing your hands, and more. It can do quite a lot without installing a single third-party app, but should you choose to, you’ll take your Apple Watch to the next level.
Fortunately, Apple allows app developers to make use of all that helpful health telemetry. Think apps for extreme sports, for meditation, for a detailed look at your sleep, and for really just about any niche fitness thing you can think of. Seriously — we’ve covered apps for morning walks, as one example. To make things simple, we’ve narrowed things down to the most popular options on the App Store for Apple Watch, according to user reviews.
Here are 12 apps Apple Watch owners have given high praise.Gentler Streak Fitness Tracker
Not everybody goes to the gym to get ripped like Hugh Jackman. Some of us just want low-stakes, low-stress physical activity without feeling guilty for failing to log reps and protein intake. That’s what Gentler Streak Fitness Tracker tries to achieve. A “compassionate approach” focuses on a more holistic overlook, rather than pushing you to your limits — or to close your activity rings — with every workout. Your rest and recovery is just as important as gains. High-quality sleep becomes just as important of a component as anything else.
Notably, Gentler Streak tracks other things not typically counted as physical activity by competing apps, like your daily walk with the dog or an hour spent cleaning. When you do want to go hard, the app won’t stand in your way. It includes live workout intensity measurements, personalized workout plans, and expert advice based on your needs and goals. Importantly, it goes to great lengths to avoid shaming you if you miss a workout. Rather than axing your streak, it encourages you with friendly messages so you don’t feel demotivated come the next workout.
Gentler Streak gets 4.7 out of 5 stars on the App Store, and has apps for iPhone and iPad as well. It’s free to use. Premium costs $7.99/month (it’s much more affordable at $27.49/year) to get access to extra features.Athlytic
AI is all the rage these days; a plethora of tools shoehorn it into every area of life, for better or worse. Athlytic aims to be your own personal AI coach — one that knows you more intimately than any coach could — to save you money on a costly personal trainer. It takes all your fitness metrics (resting heart rate, blood oxygen, temperature, everything) and uses machine learning to transmute that data into bespoke workouts and recoveries.
To be clear, this is not an AI coach in the sense that you’ll have Jarvis watching you through the camera and correcting your form. This is about data, taking every conceivable, measurable aspect of your fitness, crunching the numbers, and serving you an actionable game plan. It may not be for you if you’re expecting a friendlier app that holds your hand through the workout. Rather, it’s for gym rats who actually care about heart rate and use a scale to measure their protein scoops.
Like most apps on this list, it effectively requires a subscription to go beyond the core free features. It costs $3.99 per month or $29.99 for the full year. In Athlytic’s defense, though, there aren’t many fitness apps out there that dig this deep into the numbers in lieu of generic intensity trackers. User reviews put it at 4.8 out of 5 stars, and it has companion iPhone and iPad apps.SmartGym
Thanks to a smorgasbord of fitness gadgets these days, you can get pretty close to a satisfying gym workout sans the gym. However, what if you’ve only got a limited set of dumbbells and don’t know how to make the most of them? SmartGym may be the answer. The big focus is on AI-made and professionally curated workouts determined by what equipment you have on hand; so, no more having apps recommend big, expensive machines that would cost way more than a gym membership. It includes nifty animated cross-sections demonstrating how to do each one, with the option to build routines and add your own custom exercises.
Full disclosure: you are probably going to get the most out of this app with the companion iPhone or iPad. The Apple Watch version works fine, to be clear, but it will show you all the workouts on that tiny screen. So yeah, good luck contorting to look at your wrist for reference while performing any particular exercise. Aside from equipment-based workouts, SmartGym comes with a whole host of features common in fitness apps, like Health app integration and long-term insights.
It is a bit pricey at $9.99 a month or $59.99 a year. Part of that price may be justified by its companion Mac app, something quite rare among fitness apps. SmartGym sits at a respectable 4.4 stars out of 5 on the App Store.GEIST (Memorando)
Brain health is just as important as pumping iron and sleeping well. GEIST Memorando is one of many brain game iPhone apps, but it sets itself apart by having a functional Apple Watch version. This is a lot like that old Brain Age game on Nintendo systems with puzzles that test everything from memory to logic. The advantage Memorando has over the competition is that, well, you can play it on your wrist whenever you’re bored and have nothing better to do.
