Hi all. I'm starting this thread because someone in our "FT people on WeChat" group demonstrated to me that simply having the ICBC app would spare me of in person bank visits (which suck). Basically, I am extremely judicious wrt apps because having many affects performance in a negative way, and some come along with evil baggage.

Having gotten that preamble out of the way, following is my personal list of useful apps:

ESSENTIAL
1. WeChat
-this falls into the 当当然然 category for the time being
2. Alipay
-yes, WeChat Pay works in 99% of the cases that Alipay works, but Alipay is a specialist, and your fellow patrons at Familymart will appreciate you for the 2 seconds saved
3. Reliable VPN or Shadowsocks

EXTREMELY USEFUL
4. Baidu Maps
-far more detailed than Google Maps
-download offline maps when on wifi --> useful when flying
5. Didi
6. Mobike
-you can swing both 5 and 6 within WeChat, but the native apps have a bit more functionality

MODERATELY USEFUL
7. explorebj, exploresh
-subway maps only, but non-invasive, and spares the need to resort to google
8. your Chinese bank's native app
-might save you a trip to a branch
9. Sina Weibo
-while many people think weibo is old school, it's still kind of important if you're interested in market trends

That's all I can think of for now, but I'm interested to hear thoughts from others.