TideApp vs Ocean Watch
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
TideApp
Access real-time tidal charts and data for over 4,000 locations globally. Plan trips with future tide information and view daily highs, lows, and sun/moon cycles.
- Global tidal charts
- Daily tide highs and lows
- Sun and moon cycles
- Future tide graphs
- Trip planning tool
- Updated interface
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TideApp turns your phone into a tide table for 3,486 NOAA stations across the United States — the 1,251 reference stations NOAA publishes full harmonic data for, plus 2,235 subordinate stations derived from them. Drag the chart and the water follows your finger. Predictions are computed on your device from NOAA's published harmonic constants, so once the app has loaded, no signal or connection is needed to read the tide. FREE • Today's tide at any station, with sunrise, sunset and the day's moon • Conditions above the chart — the sky, the temperature, and the day's high and low • Nearest-station lookup from your location, or find any of the 3,486 by name or on the map • Switch between stations any time — starred stations are free, not a Pro feature PRO • Every day, not just today — drag the chart and the day strip as far as you like • Wind and gusts on a compass, pressure and which way it's going, visibility, and the chance of rain • Apple Watch app and complications • Widgets on your home screen • Alerts for high and low tides as well as thresholds The weather needs a connection. The tide does not — it is computed on your phone, so an outage takes the sky off the screen and leaves the water exactly where it was. TideApp Pro is a 4.99 USD/month or 49.99 USD/year auto-renewing subscription with a 7-day free trial for new subscribers. Payment is charged to your Apple ID at purchase confirmation; the subscription renews automatically unless auto-renew is turned off at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. Manage or cancel in your Apple ID account settings. See Terms of Use and Privacy Policy below. Predictions are computed from published NOAA CO-OPS harmonic constants. They are not official NOAA products, are not endorsed by NOAA, and are not a substitute for official navigational sources — they exclude storm surge, wind, and other weather effects and should not be relied on for navigation. Weather data provided by Apple Weather. Terms of Use: https://tideapp.com/terms.html Privacy Policy: https://tideapp.com/privacy.html
Ocean Watch
Access tide predictions for over 3,300 stations across the US and Caribbean. Visualize tide data with stunning graphics and an interactive almanac. Plan your activities with offline access to predictions and custom notes.
- 3,300+ tide stations
- Stunning graphics and visualizations
- Offline tide predictions
- Interactive almanac
- Integrated station map
- Custom notes and images
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• Over 3,300 stations on every coast of the US and beyond. (Note: limited support for stations beyond the US and Caribbean) • Stunning images, graphics and innovative visualizations to make sense of the information you care most about. • Tide predictions anywhere anytime. Sophisticated prediction algorithms and decades of data, all included so you don’t need a data connection. • Interactive Almanac so you can see the future and make your plans. • Integrated Station Map to get the big picture. • Updated design across Watch / iPhone / iPad and Mac • Best-in-class widgets and complications • Make it personal with custom notes and images.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Ocean Watch at none against TideApp's 2. Ocean Watch also leads on review sentiment (73% vs 40%) and ratings volume (2.5K vs 8). TideApp's advantage is update cadence (every 2 weeks vs every 8 months) and chart position (#199 vs unranked). On price, ads and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. TideApp sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month. Ocean Watch asks for nothing beyond the download.
Ocean Watch holds the better App Store score, 4.8 against 4.5. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Ocean Watch has 2.5K ratings behind it against 8, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 40% of TideApp's written reviews are positive against 73% of Ocean Watch's.
TideApp ships an update every 2 weeks, Ocean Watch every 8 months. The most recent releases landed on October 10, 2026 and October 11, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | TideApp | Ocean Watch |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.5 (8 ratings) | 4.8 (2.5K ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 40.0% of reviews | 73.3% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 8 | 2.5K — better |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks — better | Every 8 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free — better | Paid |
| Best chart rank | #199 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch | iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch — better |
| Requires iOS | 16.4 — better | 26.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 49 MB | 281 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Forrest Grant | Blue Bright Labs LLC |
Customer experience
TideApp
Ocean Watch
User reviews
TideApp
From 8 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Used to be great
- 👍 Phenomenal for timing slack tides
- 👍 Useful for planning activities
- 👍 Good free app
- 👍 Comprehensive location listings
Room to improve
- 😞 App is dead
- 😞 Stopped working
- 😞 Startup ad issues
- 😞 Now terrible
- 😞 Full screen ads
Ocean Watch
From 2.5K App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Accurate tide information
- 🌟 Excellent app design and user experience
- ⏱️ Quick and responsive
- 🔍 Useful for planning beach activities
- 🗺️ Supports multiple locations
Room to improve
- 🐛 Occasional crashes or bugs
- 🔍 Limited coverage for some areas (e.g., Canada)
- 🔍 Inconsistent performance on Apple Watch
- 🔍 Complications not always accurate or up-to-date
- 🔍 Difficulty setting favorites or customizing the app
Bugs and requests
TideApp
Reported bugs
41 issues- Startup ad forces browser launch
- Cannot get past opening ad
- Full screen ads that can't be closed
- Ads fill entire screen
- Full screen adds one after the other
Show 36 moreShow fewer
- Screen to install a game that can't be bypassed
- Update ruined app
- Deleted useful functionality
- Blank colored screen or lock up when working with favorites
- App needs to be forced quit
- Tide waveform does not allow scrolling
- Full screen ad on opening blocks tide info
- Ad can't be closed without downloading something unrelated
- Cannot drag line on tide graph
- New version doesn't list things in order
- Doesn't tell next high or low tide
- Screens don't move to reveal information
- App does not get past opening ad
- Not possible to scroll down graph
- Does not load
- Previous version opened in an ad that could not be closed
- No way of seeing data for any day other than current
- Changing a date does nothing
- Crashed frequently
- App crashes
- Graph part of application quit, immediately closing the app
- White banner and a black screen
- Dates back on track (temporary glitch)
- App crashes when surfing other locations
- Freezing
- Washington, D.C. sites listed under Washington state
- Tolerable work-around needed for launch
- App can be launched when no network connection is available
- Latest app deleted, old version synced back
- App takes too much memory
- Advertisement needs WiFi connection sometimes
- App says it needs WiFi, cellular is fine other times
- Totally failed
- Undo the upgrade and give back old version
- No time zone correction for tides
- Base time zone appears to be US Eastern Time Zone
Requested features
21 requests- Make a version I can buy and go ad free
- Bring back scrolling through chart waveform
- Bring back future date chart view
- Bring back ability to scroll waveform
- Add tide time offset feature
Show 16 moreShow fewer
- Add option to offset time for specific location
- Add moonphase percentage to moon rise
- Add a black (or red) line at 0 ft mark in chart mode
- See chart for one week at a time
- Get favorites loaded offline
- Include CURRENTS
- Date picker in calendar format
- Graph scrollable for 7 days
- Support switching to landscape
- Search for minus tides
- Add option to use GPS location to find tide stations nearby
- List locations under actual geographic state
- Update icon to match other apps
- Add bookmarks/default to often-used locations
- Go straight to last port viewed when opened
- Add time zone correction
Ocean Watch
Reported bugs
4 issues- App crashes when trying to open tide station details
- Tide data sometimes stuck on wrong location
- Apple Watch app not syncing or updating correctly
- Issues with the app's widget not displaying accurate information
Requested features
5 requests- Add water temperature and wind speed data
- Improve Apple Watch complication to show more detailed tide information
- Expand coverage to more locations, especially in Canada and other countries
- Add ability to set tide alerts or notifications
- Improve stability and reliability to reduce crashes
In-app purchases
TideApp
- TideApp Pro Monthly7 Days trial$4.991 Month
- TideApp Pro Annual7 Days trial$49.991 Year
Ocean Watch
No in-app purchases








