Where Can You Get Those Apple Watch Apps?

Ever since launching our Apps page, readers have been asking us one question more than any other: “Where can I download this Apple Watch app?”

The answer, while simple, reveals something of a(nother) disconnect between Apple’s legendary simplicity and its uncharacteristically complicated Apple Watch launch. So to clear things up, here’s the whole story: You download Apple Watch apps in the App Store on your iPhone. That’s it.

Right now, Apple Watch apps are nothing but extensions of the iOS apps you’re already used to. In fact, there’s no such thing as an Apple Watch app that isn’t also an iOS app. The typical workflow goes like this: When a developer makes an iOS app, they then choose to design and add on an Apple Watch extension. Not vice versa. Indeed, anyone who wants to build an Apple Watch app from scratch — without piggybacking it atop an existing iOS app — has to create that iOS app first.

While we think this model will change in time as Apple allows stand-alone apps to be installed to the wearable itself, the idea now is that anything you want on your Apple Watch has to be hosted — icon and all — on your iPhone.

And that means that for the time being, while there might be a special section for apps with Apple Watch support inside the App Store, there’s no dedicated marketplace for the category itself.

All that said, here’s a bit of advice for the prospective Apple Watch buyer: If you’re browsing WatchAware’s repository of demos and come across a selection of apps you’d like to save, simply head on over to the App Store from your iPhone or iPad, find the apps in question, and add them to your Wish List. Alternatively, of course, you can simply download them, toss them into a folder marked “Apple Watch,” and when you finally unbox that shiny new wearable and pair it with your iPhone, they’ll migrate over as if by magic. You won’t have to do anything at all.

That kind of automation is a big part of the point of Apple Watch, but it can be confusing at first. You’re just going to have to get used to it. Remember, you don’t work for Apple Watch — Apple Watch works for you.