The lockdown period has changed our life patterns. It’s continuously trying to teach us that life can take a drastic turn at any point in time, and we have absolutely no control over it. The train of life has to keep on moving on its track incessantly without any halts whatsoever.
Even though many challenges have lined themselves up in these abnormal times without any prior notice, slowly and steadily keeping a grip on patience. We seem to have found a pattern as to how should we start with our days and at what point we should end them, being locked up inside our houses at all times. We spend the most significant part of our days being at home with nowhere to be and are accordingly managing our lives so that none of the essential parts of our work gets affected.
And to stand unaffected in the face of such difficult times, it’s the mobile apps that are sustaining us to stay informed, carry out essential tasks, and at the same time in keeping boredom at par. Whether it is the shopping apps addressing our needs for daily groceries, vegetables, fruits, the online learning apps for kids and adults or even the health care apps, news apps, entertainment apps, gaming apps, they all seem to have become an essential part of our lives.
The 8 Highly Downloaded Apps During the Lockdown in India are:
1. Aarogya Setu Mobile App
It is the most downloaded app in recent times. NIC (National Information Centre) department that works for the Government of India has launched this app. It can track Covid-19 positive patients in the nearby areas from where one lives and inform the users that they have crossed paths with someone who has treated positively for coronavirus infection. This app is available for downloads on google play store for Android users and on the app store for Apple iPhone users. This app is available in 11 languages.
For registration, you have first to choose any selected language. The tracking is done through Bluetooth & GPS. After installing the app, you have to switch on the Bluetooth and GPS options available in your phone and change the location sharing settings to the ‘Always’ option(settings can be changed at any point of time to different options). Recently Central Government has announced Aarogya Setu Mobile application as mandatory for both public and private sector employees. This app has already been downloaded over 75 million times. It is one of the essential tools in fighting against the spread of Covid-19.
2. Zoom App
It has also become a handy app in current times. As we know, due to the even of lockdown, all schools, colleges and yet many companies have been shut. Through Zoom App, many employers, co-workers, teachers, students can virtually interact among themselves right from home by means of video conferencing. It is one of the leading video conferencing software apps in the market. Zoom is a software service you can use to virtually meet with others either through video or audio or both video and audio options simultaneously, all this while conducting live chats.
It can be helpful to students since lectures or lessons can be recorded and can be accessed afterwards. The Zoom meeting refers to a video conferencing meeting that’s hosted using Zoom app. One can join the meeting through his/her phone, laptop, tablet, etc. The Zoom room is a physical hardware set-up which is an ideal solution for larger companies. Between 15th of March and 5th of April, Zoom was downloaded 1.26 crore times in India.
Also, read the 10 Software and apps to conduct and host live classes in India for free.
3. TikTok App
It is a free social media app that lets you watch, create and share videos recorded to a soundtrack consisting of the top music hits. Through this app, users can shoot, edit and share 15-second videos consisting of music, animations, special effects and more. It is also the most popular app with families and couples who can be found filming themselves with the help of this app. Tik-Tok content ranges from food to fashion, pranks to pets as well as the occasional dance challenges.
It is a perfect fit during these challenging times when many of us are stuck inside our houses and are in desperate need for some silly fun to give our hearts and minds some light enjoyment. Tik-Tok has emerged as the most downloaded social media app amid the lockdown period in the event of the emergence of Coronavirus in India. Overall more than 49 million downloads have been reported on the App Store and Google Play store altogether as per the data collected from 22nd of March onwards.
4. Ludo King App
It is one of the most popular apps for playing ‘Ludo’, the classic board game. It is a free of cost mobile game app of Indian origin developed by an Indian Studio, Gametion Technologies Pvt. Ltd. It is available on Android, IOS, Kindle and windows phone platform. You can download this gaming app to cherish the old times when board games were played in almost every other household and were an inevitable part of an hour daily routine activities. It is an engaging and interactive gaming app. It has plenty of features and is easy and convenient to play with. It has been ranked as no.1 in the ‘Top free Games’ category on Play Store and App Store. Gaming method is the same as is in the conventional ludo board game. We have to roll a dice and move four tokens(of different colours) to take a full round of the ludo board, reach its centre and the one who is first in reaching its target becomes the winner. The app works in offline mode also. You can play ‘Snakes and Ladders’ as well in this gaming app. Ludo King’s download rate has almost tripled to 9. 5 million times during the lockdown, up from 3. 7 million times between the 1st of March and the 11th of March.
5. Amazon Prime Video App
It is an American origin, internet video-on-demand service that is developed, owned and operated by Amazon. It also offers television shows and films for rent or purchase which is not included within the prime video feature. It is a video streaming service available for Amazon Prime Members. With an Amazon Prime membership, you gain access to thousands of Prime Videos without giving to pay any additional costs. There is a 30-day free trial pack, following which you can pay a set amount to get the Prime membership. Membership includes a huge reservoir of movies and tv shows. One can stream them on the Prime Video app using a compatible Fire TV stick, smart TV, mobile phone or tablet etc.
To get started one has to log in to her Amazon account and then go to the Prime Video option to start browsing. This way, one can watch her favourite content anytime and anywhere. Unlimited ad-free streaming of Amazon originals and premium movies is allowed. In the wake of the coronavirus outbreak and during this period of lockdown, it is one of the best options in terms of apps to download interesting online content because it gives access to the complete entertainment package for both you and your family. In India, Prime Video has been quite affordable at Rs. 999 a year. As per the recent reports, Amazon Prime Video itself has a subscriber base of about 100 million users.
6. Udemy Mobile App
It is a learning platform where you can browse or purchase a variety of courses at one place ranging from foreign language courses, software development skills, cooking, graphic designing, computer languages etc. The user interface of this app is pretty simple and is very convenient and easy to use. This learning app is aimed at professional adults and students. Students take courses largely in order to improve upon their job-related skills. Many companies also use Udemy to improve their employees’ initial knowledge base and add more and more skills to their performance capabilities. One can save or download individual lectures, some particular sections of videos or an entire course for viewing offline at later times on their Android Mobile app. Due to piracy issues, only one Udemy course can be accessed at a time through this app, because the downloaded offline content is encrypted. As of Jan 2020, this app has more than 50 million students enrolled in it and 57, 000 instructors teaching courses in over 65 languages giving rise to almost 1, 00, 000 online video courses. With the lockdown period being extended we have a lot of free time on our hands, which we can put to some good use by joining any of these cost-effective, time-saving and easily accessible courses.
7. BigBasket (BB) Daily App
Considering the limitations exercised by present situations when going out is not allowed and nearby shops and stores also sometimes go out of stock, timing restrictions come into play, and one has to take into consideration the demands that have been prioritized. Keeping in mind all these aspects that may come into play in times of emergencies, that too all at the same time, BB daily has proved to be a very useful app. BB daily is an app which enables customers to place orders for a variety of products in daily or essential items categories based on a subscription.
The company has permanently branded the milk delivery services offered by Big Basket as BB daily. It lets the customers order milk and other essential products the previous night and delivers these items the very next morning right at their doorstep. It is a very convenient app for delivery of essential products that makes sure that there is no shortage of items of daily needs for its customers in the current abnormal times. BB daily app enables deliveries in 10 metropolitan cities in India at present(namely Banglore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Delhi, Gurugram, Noida, Mumbai, Pune, Kolkata and Ahmedabad). BB daily is a subscription service run by Big Basket. They have made claims that BB Daily makes around 160, 000 deliveries every morning before 7 am offering products like milk and other dairy products, breakfast cereal and coconut water.
8. Times Of India News App
This app brings you the latest English News. It is the official app for the news site ‘The Times of India’, which is one of the few trustworthy sources of news coming from all over India. The app is perfectly designed for touch screen devices. The app covers the breaking news, central and state political headlines, live news, alerts for Bollywood news, Cricket, business, travel, Gadgets, Education etc. including the top news items from your own city.
This app is primarily focused on news in India, but at the same time, it also offers international news as well. It tends to hold a neutral perspective while reporting different events and occurrences that are worth finding their way into the news. This app has proved to be very beneficial during the lockdown period because there are some areas in the country where the morning newspaper hasn’t been successfully finding it’s way on the coffee tables of many households due to the various shortages being faced. Also, the latest announcement and news updates can be accessed through the mobile app notification option the very second they take place. You can download this app from the Google Play store or visit get.timesofindia.com from your Android Web Browser.
Thus, these are some of the highly downloaded apps during the lockdown which is particularly helpful during these trying times, be it about your health, learning, entertainment, the supply of daily essentials, keeping you updated with the everyday news, etc. So, download those apps which you think might be productive for you based on your own needs.
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