Daily life in China runs through the phone, so a new Android device needs messaging, payments, navigation and office apps from day one. From Android apps on this site we picked official or well-regarded apps for these high-frequency needs, plus a few open-source tools for phone-to-PC file transfer, password management, universal media playback and discovering more open-source software.
- 1
WeChat for Android, Tencent's super-app for messaging, Moments, payments and Mini Programs.
- 2
Alipay for Android, Ant Group's mobile payment and lifestyle services super-app in China.
- 3
Amap (Gaode Maps) for Android, Alibaba's map and navigation app with ride-hailing aggregation and local discovery.
- 4
Railway 12306 for Android, the official China Railway app for buying, changing and refunding train tickets.
- 5
WPS Office for Android: a mobile office suite for viewing and editing Word, Excel, PowerPoint and PDF files.
- 6
Sogou Input for Android, with smart pinyin input, rich lexicons and skins, and cross-device copy and paste with Windows.
- 7
Meituan for Android, the all-in-one local services app for food delivery, in-store deals, hotels and instant retail in China.
- 8
WeRead is Tencent's e-book reading app with published books, web novels, comics and audio book talks plus social reading features.
- 9
Android app of LocalSend, a free open-source tool for sending files and text to nearby devices over the local network.
- 10
The Android app of Bitwarden, an open-source, end-to-end encrypted password manager with autofill and cross-device sync.
- 11
VLC for Android is the full Android port of the free, open-source VLC media player, playing almost any file, stream or network share.
- 12
F-Droid is a free and open-source Android app store that hosts only FOSS apps and needs no account to install them.
