Most Popular Apps in China (Part 2)
In our earlier blog post Most Popular Apps in China (Part 1) we introduced 5 well known Chinese apps. Have you tried them out yet? After you get the hang of those 5 apps you’re ready to move on to our next top five popular apps used in China.
We hope that you will find these next five apps useful, or at least a little fun.
美颜相机 / BeautyCam
Nearly all phones nowadays have built-in cameras you can use for taking selfies. And to make the pictures even more beautiful, you can enhance the photos before you upload them. One of the most popular apps for enhancing photos is 美颜相机. The biggest reason for its popularity is the selfie function, which lets you easily take a beautiful photo of yourself with the tap of a button. The app has lots of color filters, and also more advanced filters such as automatically applying makeup or making your skin look more beautiful.
You need to try this app. Either you’ll fall in love with the look of it, or you’ll get a good laugh out of glamorizing yourself. There are over 800 million users so chances are you have seen photos of your friends that were touched up with this app. While we think you’re all beautiful just the way you are, you can still have fun adding stickers and colors to your photos.
You can learn more about how to use BeautyCam in our earlier blog post Taking Photos.
优酷视频 / Youku
优酷视频 is one of China’s top online video and streaming service platforms. It’s similar to Youtube, and you can upload videos of any length. Youku’s video library includes many full-length films as well as TV episodes. Viewers can watch these films for free on Youku, although they often have Chinese subtitles.
There are many other online video websites similar to Youku, such as iQiyi, Sohu, LeTv and V.QQ, but a lot of them can only be used in mainland China. If you are in China however, you can try them out to help improve your Chinese.
In our earlier blog post, we recommended some good Chinese TV programs suitable for practicing Chinese at different levels. If that sounds interesting, check it out at: Recommended Chinese Variety Shows.
大众点评 / Dazhong.com
If you like Chinese food, you can use 大众点评 to find a good restaurant. In the Dazhong Dianping App you will find information, ratings and user comments for many restaurants, especially in mainland China. The app also provides group coupons, delivery service, and online reservations. For many popular restaurants in China you have to line up to have dinner. With this app however, you can often choose to line up online, and receive a message when it’s about to be your turn. This way you don’t have to go to the restaurant and wait for hours.
If you are looking for delivery service, you also can try 百度外卖 or 饿了么 to order food home. These apps are popular among office workers, because that way they don’t need to go out to have lunch, but can eat at the office instead and have more time for work.
酷狗 / Kugou Music
酷狗 is a music app similar to Spotify. A lot of the music in this app is free, but sometimes it can only be used in mainland China. In the app you will find a lot of Chinese songs, but also some of English, Japanese, and other songs. It also shows you the song lyrics while the song is playing.
If you like KTV, maybe 全民K歌 is suitable for you. There are a lot of karaoke tracks in this app, and you can record your own voice to the songs. If you upload your songs you can also share them with your friends via WeChat and QQ.
搜狗拼音输入法 / Sogou Pinyin Method
搜狗拼音输入法 is a popular Chinese Pinyin input method which is available for the computer, Android and iOS. Sogou Pinyin provides features for customizing the dictionary, appearance and functionality. Sogou Pinyin’s dictionary can be enriched by adding so-called cell dictionaries, which contain words from special fields, such as idol names, movie titles and buzz words. The appearance of Sogou Pinyin can be customized using skins and animations, so that you can express your individuality.
OK! Those are our top ten apps that Chinese people like to use! Did you find any apps you like? Have you tried them all out yet? Which one is your favorite? (Let us know in the comments below!)
I hope it helps you make your Chinese life a little more convenient.
