I've been trying out Pokemon Go's Apple Watch app and... [shrugs]

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The Pokemon Go app for Apple Watch is finally here after a surprise update and... well, it's alright I guess. It works exactly as shown at the last Apple conference so I wasn't expecting much and, in practice, that's what I got.

The main issue is that you can't use it to catch Pokemon like you can with the Pokemon Go Plus. You'll get notifications about them but have to get your phone out if you want to do anything. To be fair that function was never promised but it still feels so weird to get a notification like this and not be able to act on it: 

You can collect pokestops, after receiving a notification and then spinning the wheel. You'll get a little update then to show you what you collected:

And that's pretty much it. There's loads of stat tracking, showing you nearby pokemon, distances needed to walk for eggs and so on. But without that basic catching function it actually feels less useful than the Plus. 

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It also murders the battery. Normally I put my watch on to charge at night at around 30-40%. After barely a couple of hours here I was already down to 50% suggesting you won't make it through the day if you try using it. 

Obviously this is just a little bit of fluff to go with the main app but I was expecting it to be fun, not to be thinking about deleting it on the first morning. I'll use it for a bit more and see how I feel after some longer walks. 

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Leon Hurley
Leon Hurley
Managing editor for guides

I'm GamesRadar's Managing Editor for guides. I also write reviews, previews and features, largely about horror, action adventure, FPS and open world games. I previously worked on Kotaku, and the Official PlayStation Magazine and website.