Native apps are not going to change a thing, the reality is that Apple Watch simply isn't cut out for most apps. Take Instagram (one of the most popular apps) for example - who the hell is gonna browse their picture feed on a 1.3 inch 340px screen? Even if you were crazy enough to do that, it's a social network and you can't write comments on the watch. How do you take a selfie to share with your friends? You're constantly pulling out your phone for all these things. So why not just use the "real" full-fledged Instagram app on your phone like you've already been doing for the past five years?
Like 95% of apps out there, a native Instagram watch app wouldn't fix any of these glaring issues, it's just not something that works well on a watch. If you look at the most popular iOS apps they're either games or social networks, both of which require constant interaction from the user. That experience just doesn't translate well to a tiny watch that's more of a read-only device intended for limited and quick interactions.
I don't think there's ever going to be an app craze on the Watch like there was with the iPhone. It's awkward to describe Watch apps ("this is like the app you've already got on your phone except shittier in every single way") and It's even more awkward to actually demo them when it's strapped to your body and the screen shuts off unless your wrist is held at a certain angle. The word of mouth and viral factor is not going to be there.
If I were Apple, I wouldn't be betting big on watch apps taking off and instead would be doubling down on the fitness features and other first party integrations. It'd be neat if I could pair my watch with my Mac and have it lock the screen whenever I left the room and automatically unlock whenever I sit back down at my desk again for example. Convenience features like that are more of a selling point than having a stripped down read-only version of Facebook on my wrist IMO. It'll be interesting to see what happens at WWDC.
