Plenty of watch apps are free to download and then put all wrist-related features behind a paywall. These ones don’t.
So you've just strapped on a new Apple Watch, paired it with your iPhone and opened up the App Store to fill it up with cool software. Plenty of what you'll find there says it's free, and most of it is — right up until you try to use the component that runs on your wrist. The App Store explains that apps marked with Get instead of a price tag can still come with in-app purchases, and that's often where the paywall is with watch apps.
Let's take Spotify as an example. Its free tier will refuse to play anything from the watch at all, allowing those on the free tier to only control music playing on another device. Meanwhile, Pocket Casts (a cross-platform podcast player) locks standalone watch playback behind its $39.99/year Plus Plan. Fitness apps commonly do this, too, with hiking route planner Footpath putting its watch features behind a paid tier, and Komoot forcing new users to pay for Premium before they can send a route to a device.
In response, we've put together a short list of great apps where the main Apple Watch functionality is completely free to use.
