We’re a few hours away from quite possibly a new watch and that got me thinking about the long debate of watch apps
I don’t use any fitness apps, which immediately limits the possibilities, but I do make sure of the built in Apple apps a fair bit, especially the Home app
Everyday I use it to control lights and I invariably get the spinner while it “updates”
I find it strange and annoying that we are still having this debate with WatchOS4 and I’m not sure what it’s like with the beta, has anyone tried it?
Apps like home or any other commonly used one should be ready to fire at all times
Now what is really strange is Siri on the watch doesn’t seem to have that problem, maybe because it sends the command to iPhone
What has been your experience? please share 
I’m on watchOS 5 and have been nearly since the beginning (I was about to update it on day one when I saw the reports of bricked devices, so I’ve been on it since they fixed that).
WatchOS 5 is faster on my series 2, but not fast enough. By adding certain apps to the dock I’ve sped things up considerably, but there’s a limited number of spaces in the dock and quite a few apps I’d love to use but they’re too slow otherwise. It’s often faster for me to find my iPhone or ask Alexa to do whatever it is that I want than to do anything except interact with apps in the dock on the watch.
Maybe the Watch 4 will fix some of these issues, but in my experience Apple Watch 3 “speed” is not good for
- Watch OS updates – I understand why it needs to be on power, but it can take 30 minutes or more to move the update over to the watch before installing it
- Siri’s “Hang on … I’ll tap you when I’m ready response” especially when I give simple commands such as “set a timer for 20 minutes” – mysterious
- Also Siri, “Sorry I can’t answer that here … check your phone” (not the exact phrase, but you get the point)
- Uploading playlists or albums to the Watch … adding 30 tracks can take 15 minutes
- Apps that need data updates sent from the phone – I try to avoid these, but it’s time for the Watch to be freed from the phone dependency
I’ve been running WatchOS 5 on my series 3 watch and even still the music syncing process is very temperamental. I’ve had to take the watch on/off charge a couple of times to kick start the syncing process and even still the progress bar barely shuffles along.
Siri has been a vast improvement from series 2 but I still do get a 'Hold on…" when I start speaking. I’ve been testing out the ‘Raise to Speak’ feature and it seems to speed the process up a bit.
The Home app is great on the watch I use this a lot. Especially using a complication on the watch face to quickly select a scene.
I have noticed a better syncing process when adding some Podcasts to my watch with watchOS 5 - it seems to move much faster despite some long shows such as MPU.