How to track your reading from your Apple Watch
The phone is the worst thing to reach for mid-chapter. A reading tracker on your wrist starts the timer, logs the page you reached and puts your streak on the watch face, without ever putting the book down.
Why the wrist beats the phone
Every reading tracker asks you to log a session, and every phone punishes you for picking it up to do it. Unlocking to start a timer is the moment a notification catches you, and half an hour of reading becomes half an hour of something else. A watch has nothing to offer you except the thing you came for.
Time a session without the phone
Start a session on the watch, read, then log where you landed with a turn of the Digital Crown. The whole interaction is two taps and a twist, and it never needs the phone in the room. Sessions recorded on the wrist are the same sessions your Statistics tab counts – same streak, same pace, same yearly total.
Switch between what you are reading
If you have more than one book on the go – the bedside novel, the commute non-fiction, the audiobook – you can switch between them straight from the watch, without going near the phone to change which book the timer is pointed at.
Put it on your watch face
Complications are the point of a watch app. Must Read offers them for your current book, your progress through it, and your reading streak – so the question "have I read today" gets answered by glancing at your wrist, which is the only place a streak reminder ever works. Your streak and today's minutes sit one glance away.
What you need
The Apple Watch app arrived in Must Read 3.5 and needs watchOS 26 or later; the iPhone and iPad app itself runs on iOS 18 and later. The watch app speaks all 34 languages the watch supports, so it is not an English-only bolt-on.
Quick answers
Do I need my iPhone nearby to log a session?
No. Start, time and log a session on the watch, and it syncs to your library when the two are next in touch.
Which watch face complications are available?
Your current book, your progress through it, and your reading streak, so any of the three can live on the face you already use.
Does it work on older watches?
The app needs watchOS 26 or later. On earlier versions the iPhone app works as normal, just without the wrist half.
Start your next session from your wrist
- Free for your first 10 books
- Reading timer & Live Activity
- Stats, goals & streaks
