People in the Philippines are always very practical when they choose their mobile apps. They choose the apps that will make their lives easier, as well as entertain and cheer them up.
The same has been true in 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing lockdown have forced most Filipinos to stay at home and the apps that people are choosing reflect the situation.
The apps that took over the Philippines in 2020 are fun, entertaining, practical, and above all, help Filipinos deal with the pandemic better.
Zynga poker
Zynga poker is the world’s most popular free poker game. It has tons of tables, tournaments, and players. It provides a completely authentic poker experience and it comes as close to the real thing as possible.
With Filipinos spending more time on their phones than ever, it was only a matter of time when Zynga poker would have exploded in popularity. And 2020, together with COVID-19, provided the perfect storm for that to happen.
In Zynga poker, there are different kinds of tables for different types of Filipino players. This is great because players can choose from casual poker tables, tournament games, as well as VIP tables.
However, while there are lots of players who like playing poker for free, there many others who prefer to play for real money. For these Filipino players, Zynga poker just doesn’t cut it.
They prefer to play at online casino sites, like the thrill of playing for real money and particularly enjoy when they withdraw their winnings. As good as Zynga poker is, it doesn’t allow you to withdraw your winnings.
This is why the number of Filipinos who are playing on casino apps is increasing all the time. This is also helped by the fact that online casinos are completely legal in the Philippines.
This means that Filipinos only need to find a trusted casino operator such as the ones shown in this article, and then they can play at some of the best slots, video poker, and live casino games out there.
Tik Tok
Tik Tok is a video-sharing social app that has been around for quite some time but has rapidly increased in popularity in 2020 for all the obvious reasons.
During the COVID-19 lockdown, people have had more free time on their hands and started to create and share short videos. Filipinos were no exceptions to this.
The interesting thing about Tik Tok and Filipinos is that before the COVID-19 pandemic struck, it was mostly young people who were using the app. However, as parents and adults had to spend more time at home, it was inevitable that they would start using Tik Tok to cheer themselves up too.
Google Classroom
Google Classroom has been an essential app that almost everyone in the Filipino education system used. There are many things we learned about distance education during COVID-19, and one of them is that Google Classroom is far superior to any other distance learning app out there.
The Google app helped Filipino students and teachers stay in touch during the COVID-19 lockdown. It also allowed them to share homework assignments, do various types of tests, and post announcements.
Google Classroom is connected to several other Google apps that make the whole teaching and learning process much easier. For instance, Filipino students hand in their homework using Google Docs, and then their teachers grade it and leave feedback via the app. Similarly, Filipino teachers create online tests using Google Forms and then use the app to share the test results and feedback with the students.
Zoom
In 2020, Zoom exploded in popularity, and millions of people started using the app around the world. The same happened in the Philippines. Because Filipinos have had to stay at home for extended periods during the lockdown, their social lives suffered substantially.
They could only communicate face to face with family members, and while this is perfectly alright, people do need to talk to someone outside their household to have a healthy social life.
As a result, people around the world, and Filipinos too, turned to Zoom. So many people started using the app in 2020 that its developers had to take some extra measures to make it more secure due to the influx of users. Existing security and privacy issues were fixed, and the company also got some top encryption know-how courtesy of their acquisition of Keystone.
Filipinos use Zoom to talk to their friends, as well as organize work-related conference calls. Similarly, Filipino school children, teens, and university students use the app to follow their lessons and lectures and to talk to their teachers. The recording feature that the app comes with is particularly useful. It is great if you are a student trying to go through a lecture again, or a teacher who wants to revisit a Zoom webinar.