5 Of The Best Apple Watch Apps For Artists
Since its release in 2015, the Apple Watch has transformed into a truly revolutionary device — it's a constant companion on your wrist. In fact, the wearable has completely changed the way people use their smart devices. With its numerous applications available for use and still showing signs of growing in number, it is no wonder that artists of all types flock to Apple to help with their daily work and personal creative projects.
Whether you are a graphic designer, a street artist, or a photographer, several smartwatch-friendly apps can help you as a creator to harness your inspiration on the go. The tools available range from simply trying to find the perfect color match to sending in your work for comments and critiques. Based on our own hands-on experience, as well as a variety of reviews from users, here are five of the best Apple Watch apps to use as an artist.
Colordrop
Of all the Apple Watch secrets, utilizing your watch as a guide for your work is a great practice for artists. Conveniently, Colordrop can help with that. On the iPhone or iPad, the app allows you to capture the colors of any image you want. These images can be photos you've taken, or you can make use of the Live Capture feature in the app to gather color information from whatever is around you at the moment. From there, the app will save the color analysis to your profile.
Colordrop's Apple Watch app is effective for you because you can open the app anywhere you are and quickly find the colors that were previously saved. You can even easily access their RGB and HTML color codes. This means that if you're setting up the color code for a new AI art QR code or shopping for your next paints, you can quickly find the information. Colordrop costs $4.99 and does offer more in-app purchases for a better experience.
Sneaks
As an artist, one way to help you improve your craft is to receive criticism. However, it can be a bit uncomfortable to ask your friends and family to judge your work. Instead, you can use the Sneaks app. Sneaks is a free app that allows you to reach out to a community that actively wants to help make you a better artist. People can offer ideas and comments on your work and answer any questions you have. You do not need an invite to join the app, and if you want to comment on another artist's work, you can do so anonymously or not.
When you do receive a comment on your work, your Apple Watch will immediately notify you. From there, you can either check the notification on your watch or open the app on your iPhone. It is important to note that you cannot reply to the comments on the Apple Watch — though, that service may come available at a later date.
ProCamera
Being an artist doesn't necessarily mean that you paint pictures or draw landscapes. Everyone from fashion designers to photographers are artists as well. If you're a photographer or a videographer, though, you more than likely have a lot of camera accessories and tech that help you in your craft, and the ProCamera app, which is also featured on the Apple Watch, can be one of them.
ProCamera works like a professional camera as it has auto, semi-auto, and full manual modes, meaning you can have as much or as little control over the camera as you want. Additionally, it supports many styles of lenses like ultra-wide, wide, tele, and LiDAR. Why is this important when it comes to using ProCamera's Apple Watch app? Because you can set up the camera the way you want, step away from it, and use the watch as a remote trigger. ProCamera costs $14.99 and in-app purchases are available to upgrade it if desired.
Spotify
For many artists, music helps to get their creative juices flowing, so having the Spotify app close at hand — or, in this case, on your wrist — can be a benefit. There are two ways you can use the Spotify app on your Apple Watch. The first is to use it as a controller for another device. For example, if Spotify is playing on your iPhone, you can use your watch to change songs and adjust the volume.
The second way to use Spotify requires you to have the music platform's Premium subscription. However, if you do have access to it, you can play music or audiobooks directly from your watch or connect your Bluetooth headphones to the watch instead. You can also download at least 10 hours worth of music or podcasts for offline listening. Spotify is a free app to download, however, the platform's subscription currently costs $10.99 per month — if you're a student it's only $5.99 per month, though.
Things
Planning your day can be a struggle sometimes when you have to fit in chores, work, and other essential activities. Things is one of those organizational apps that can help you do that. Essentially, as plans come up, you schedule them in the app and they become listed for you. Additionally, you can also create projects that you have going on and set them up as an outline. If you're a graphic designer and need to organize your project into layers, for example, using the outline method can help keep your work on track, especially if you keep coming up with ideas that need to be written down.
On the Apple Watch, you'll be able to see your listed schedules and notes, and when something is close to being due, you'll get a notification right on your wrist with the reminder. No more forgetting plans or due dates for you. Things will run you $9.99 but can potentially help keep your things in order.