What’s on my phone as a Ukrainian in 2022
Today I want to talk about my phone — apps I use on regular basis. Particularly it might be interesting to you, reader, as I’m Ukrainian, living in Ukraine, so I have my own specific things I use, don’t use, simply don’t have or that are unique to my country. This phone review could be a window into another culture through a tech perspective or you can take a few tips or apps that you may find useful. In the end, it’s just another phone teardown, so grab yourself a coffee and enjoy.
Phone I use
I use iPhone 13 Pro with iOS 16. I really like the phone and don’t see any reason to update to 14 Pro.
Settings in iOS
- I have most of the notifications disabled;
- I take advantage of the Work, Sleep, Driving, and Do Not Disturb Focus Modes in iOS;
- I use widgets on home screens as well as App Library to hide apps that I don’t use;
- The language on my phone is set to English.
The doc
Phone app — I usually have around 10 incoming and outgoing calls daily. So not a heavily used app, but still essential.
Telegram — this is one of the most important apps for me. After February 24th, 2022, when Russia started a full-scale war against Ukraine, Telegram became essential for many people, as not only everybody is using the app, but all major news channels and “help bots” are using Telegram as well. Apps like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Signal, and iMessage are far less popular.
Safari — I kept switching between Chrome and Safari on my iPhone (I use Chrome on mac), but things like the support for Apple Pay and clean UI are constantly bringing me back to Safari. Also, in Ukraine, in some popular restaurants, you can pay with Apple Pay via a QR code on your table. Also, you can pay for almost anything (postal services, groceries, car wash) via Apple Pay in the browser, so not having this ability is very limiting.
Spotify — just recently, in August 2022, Spotify podcasts were added to Spotify Ukraine. Now, Spotify is my one-stop shop for all things audio (not including audiobooks).
First home screen
Widgets only:
- Google Calendar widget;
- Gmail widget;
- Things (to-do) “Today” view.
Second home screen
Apps:
- Camera (default iOS);
- Photos (default iOS) — I actually use my Photos app as one of the inboxes — take screenshots of things that are interesting and review them every week;
- Messages (default iOS) — a lot of 2FA are using text messages;
- Monobank — that is one of the greatest apps right here. This banking app allows you to do everything money related from checking your balance to opening bank deposits and taking loans, donations, investments, car insurance, and utility payments — all are here. Plus, it has great UI, performance and gamification, so you open awards, as you complete certain payment challenges, such as paying 10 times for a gym or sharing payment for the first time with your friends. Simply said, this is one of the most useful apps on my phone;
- Google Maps;
- Audible — 90% of my “reading” is actually listening, so this app is essential for me. Since the war started, Amazon granted every Ukrainian a 6-months free subscription. It’s super nice to know that I support the service since 2016 and now this service supports my country.
- Instapaper — to store articles for “read later”
- Slack — work on my phone leaves here. Slack is the main place where I may do some work-related stuff on my phone.
Widgets:
- Weather
- WaterMinder — the app I use to track the fact that I don’t drink 3 litres of water a day.
- Notion widget, leading to the “Personal Wiki” page. I still find that using Apple Notes for quick notes is more convenient, but I really want to use only one notes app and Notion is miles better for anything else. And Notion is a great app to use for all things notes. Not the best mobile UI/UX, but I can tolerate this, so I can use one single app across mobile and desktop
App Library
Apps that didn’t make it to the home screens but are essential nonetheless.
Дія [dia] — can be translated as “action” — it is “country in a smartphone”. Your IDs and driving license, COVID certificates and other documents are stored there. In addition, you can do almost anything, government-related there, like opening a business account or paying taxes.
Nova Poshta — can be translated as “new postal service” — the best delivery service in the world (yes, really). You can deliver a parcel from one city to another in 24 hours. That is not an e-commerce service like Amazon, this is just a parcel from any one person to another. Just think about it.
Rozetka — simply said, this is Ukrainian Amazon.com. We don’t have Amazon in Ukraine, but here is the alternative.
Airstrike Alarm — civil defence siren — this app is connected to a network for national air raid alerts and can give you regular and urgent notifications about actual, ongoing, alarms. This app launched a couple of days after the full-scale war in Ukraine started and is probably one of the most useful apps for any Ukrainian. Almost certainly this is the one saving the most lives. Actually, a good friend of mine, Stepan Tanasiychuk and his company Stfalcon, co-developed this app and in 4 days beta version was available for download. You can read more about that app development story here (you will need to use Google Translate, but this is worth it).
This is what is on my phone as Ukrainian, living in Ukraine in 2022. Please leave comments and I will be happy to meet you there.