My today’s article will be devoted to the useful apps to live in Korea. Surprisingly, many popular apps that are used all over the world are not used here or even doesn’t work well. For instance, WhatsApp is not used at all and Google Maps cannot draw you a route due to some weird legal restriction imposed by the government.
Before I start introducing specific apps I should tell you about two major corporations that dominate on the market. They are some kind of a local Google, if you will. Those corporations are NAVER Corp. (네이버) and Daum Kakao Corp. (다음카카오) So most of the really useful apps are their products and I strongly advise you to check out their pages and their products, sorry for the tautology.
Just a one more little thing to mention, I have to admit that I’m an “Apple guy” and I don’t have any android devices. Therefore, all my screenshots will be from the App Store; however, all these apps are available on the Android platform as well.
KakaoTalk (카카오톡)
Source: App Store
This is a very important app and you will definitely need this one. KakaoTalk is pretty much an analogue of WhatsApp and it is the only messenger that is used in Korea. So if you want to be able to chat with Koreans and be in some student groups, there is no way around this app.
Naver Map (네이버 지도)
This is a product of another media giant Naver which is primarily is a search engine. As I said before Google doesn’t work well in South Korea. Although it does accurately locate your position and have an accurate map, it cannot draw you an adequate route especially by foot. The reason for that is quite a concern of the government about the safety and protection against North Korea. You can find more about it in the internet.
Back to the app, here how it is look like:
Source: App Store
Of course the more you know Korean, the more useful this map will be to you; however, even without this knowledge it will do a great job in searching places and getting you from point A to point B.
KakaoMetro (카카오 메트로)
Back to the Kakao again. This app, as the name implies, will help you to easily travel by subway.
Source: App Store
You have to simply select the starting and ending points and this app will tell you the easiest way, where to transfer to another line, show you the exits and calculate the expected arrival time.
Kakaobus (카카오 버스)
This one is very similar to the previous one, although it utilizes the public ground transportation.
Source: App Store
Although the subway in Seoul is relatively broad and easy to use, sometimes it is more convenient to use the bus. Moreover, if you transfer from subway to bus or vice versa you don’t have to pay the full amount for the ticket but rather a few hundreds more (as far as I recall). And on top of this, the subway closes at 1am (approximately), so you might better to take a bus than a taxi or have walk.
Hello Talk (헬로우 토크)
Enough of the different travelling apps. This app will help you to find a partner for the language exchange. Of course, this app is for those who are willing to learn or practice a foreign language.
Source: App Store
The way it works is you select the languages that you are mastering in and then select languages that you want to practice. You find a person in your neighborhood that have opposite preferences, you meet and teach each other your language pretty much.
Snow (스노우)
Just for a change, this app will be useful for those who like selfies.
Source: App Store
It has vast number of different effects; Snapchat’s effects are the kids’ stuff compared to this app. And since selfies are so popular in Korea, you might find this app very useful to chat with your friends or make something different for your Instagram.
Article by Pavel from Russia
myHUBS 
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