Corona: 25 Apps you can use to never leave the house

Laundry, grocery, doctor appointments, cleaning services, plumbers, handy men, are all just a touch away.

Groceries

Union Coop

The Union Coop smart app is an integrated mobile app that provides several services to customers and connects Union Coop supermarkets with shoppers. The app will provide you with a next generation shopping experience with over 26, 000 products at your fingertips. App services include registration of your Tamayaz card, earn points. It displays last 10 purchases transactions and products details, as well as customer service and so much more.

Carrefour Now

For grocery shopping use Carrefour Now and in less than an hour they will be at your door, although sometimes their app search is frustrating, the fast delivery makes up for it. Carrefour is one of the largest hypermarket and supermarket chains in the world, so you can usually find everything you need there.

Lulu Hypermarket

Loaded with great features, this application will keep you updated about all the latest happenings, best offers, deals and more at your nearest LuLu Hypermarket and LuLu Webstore. Groceries will be delivered on the same or next day based on time your purchased it.

Waitrose & Partners

Create an account in our app and you can start shopping straight away. Shop online with Waitrose and you can view existing orders, review what’s already in your trolley and add new items. And, if you’re a myWaitrose member, you will benefit from the same great offers. Book a slot to have your groceries delivered. Choose the most convenient time for you with 1-hour delivery slots, available 7 days a week, and free delivery.

Marks & Spencer Food

Marks & Spencer has launched its brand-new home delivery mobile application, ‘Marks & Spencer Food’, delivering its premium range of groceries direct to Dubai customers’ doors. The free to download mobile application is available on Android and Apple app stores and gives customers access to the brand’s ever-popular food, including ready to cook meals, kitchen cupboard essentials, British favourites such as crumpets and shortbread, as well as chilled and frozen items.

El Grocer

The El Grocer app is a great one we love to use. They are actually pretty good at tracking your trends, needs and wants. They are good at figuring your patterns out and will keep your favourite items up on top for ease of access.

Kibsons

For fruits and vegetables we choose Kibsons. They have fantastic produce from around the world and lots of organic veggies. They are never delivered with a missing item and with the option of being environmentally friendly and stuff can be packed in a carton rather than plastic bags.

Soopa

For gourmet and specialized products, I don’t have to drive up and down the city looking for what I need to make that special dish at home, because I use the Soopa App, which gives you access to many ethnic shops and my favorite butcher shop.

NRTC Fresh

NRTC Fresh is the online fresh fruits and vegetable delivery platform in the UAE provides the freshest products. They deliver high quality fruits and vegetables from their farm to your home at a competitive price. They even have costumer service hotline for any query, complaint or required assistance. You can choose your delivery time.

InstaShop

A very popular online shopping app, that is great for even just a small purchase. They have a huge variety and cater to a lot of locations all over the UAE as well as regionally like places in Egypt, Lebanon, Bahrain and more. Instashop also connects you to cleaning services among other things. In selected areas of Abu Dhabi they also provide pharmacy delivery, pet shop delivery and butchery delivery. The app is brilliantly designed and broken down into over 20 categories ranging from dairy and eggs, and fruits and vegetables to coffee and tea, and baby care.

Pharmacy and medical services

Okadoc

This is another lifesaving app. If you are feeling ill and need to book a doctor’s appointment right away this is the app you use to find exactly what you need. Okadoc also helps health providers can also benefit by optimizing doctors’ schedules and reduce no-shows. Practitioner can publicize their background as well as their expertise through Okadoc, strengthening their online presence to attract more patients.

Life pharmacy

This app is great. All you need to do is to send a picture of the prescription and the insurance card and next thing you know, there’s a knock at your door. If you just want to buy medicine, then order online. Whether you need Vitamins and Nutrition, Sports Supplements, Beauty Care or Home Health Care. They have run out of ethanol and hand sanitisers however. 

Instashop

You can also use the popular online shopping app to order pharmacy products from anywhere in the UAE.

Laundry

Washmen

Doing your own laundry would be a smart idea right about now, especially if you have a little extra free time at home? But there are those who take care of it for you. Dubai’s Washmen offer a pickup, clean and press and drop off service; allowing us to focus on other things instead of spending my time and energy on getting my family’s clothes cleaned. It usually takes only 25 minutes for the entire pickup process. They pick up the bags from my front door, and they return them the next day. Whether I am home or not, the bag colors provided by Washmen makes life easier I don’t have to wait for the pickup to explain anything. Blue bag means wash and fold, green is clean and press, and the white bag is press only. Zero error, no language barrier and everybody is on the same page. My card is charged and no cash hassle is encountered.

JustClean

JustClean is the marketplace app that brings hundreds of laundries together in the UAE and region wide. Users are familiar with their delivery vans and drivers. What they won’t have seen before is the drivers wearing face masks and disposable or washable gloves. That’s just one of the measures they’ve introduced in the wake of the coronavirus crisis. Another is having their fleet of delivery vans sprayed with disinfectant for every pick up or delivery journey. All laundries in the JustClean network follow recently intensified hygiene regulations.

Getlaundry.ae

This laundry service, allows customers to request on-demand laundry services online to save time and effort. The pre-booked round the clock laundry service offers everything from washing and pressing to dry cleaning and folding, with delivery within 24 hours. The online service has many affiliated laundries in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah, as a result of which it can cater to orders from across the emirates.

LaundryMan

Another on-demand app providing hassle-free and affordable laundry and dry-cleaning service in Dubai. Powered by Laundrapp, they make sure your clothes have a smooth journey right from placing your order to delivery. You can track your order, which means you get real-time updates, each step of the way. Have a question regarding your order? Just message the team of experts over the app, no matter the time of day. Blue bag for full service (wash, iron, fold), grey bag for ironing only and white bag for Wash and Fold

Cleaning and General convenience

CAFU

With schools closed, parents keeping a watch on their kids, and many professionals now working from home, traveling to a petrol pump could be seen as a risk. If you want to ensure your car is always fueled up, CAFU is your go-to app. The MENA region's first on-demand fuel delivery app, CAFU pilots can come and fuel up your car wherever you are and at your convenient time. And best of all, you need not be physically present at the car during the refueling process - so completely contactless. All you need to do is open the app and register your account with your car details (it’s that easy!), mark your location on the map and hit ‘Order’ fuel. Or you can choose to schedule a delivery for later. It costs the same as a petrol pump.

CAFU operates in Dubai, Ajman, Sharjah and Umm Al Quwain and is available on iOS and Android app stores.

Urban Clap

Are you kept waiting by maintenance teams when something breaks down at home, or not able to find time to clean? Urban Clap comes in to save the day for less money than other maintenance company, with services delivered in less than 24 hours. From pest control to AC repairs to home cleaning. Whatever service you want you can have. Cleaning, plumbing, handy men, AC maintenance, painting are all services I have used and was happy that I didn’t have to search for them or negotiate the best price, it is all done on my behalf through the apps.

Food delivery

Talabat

Talabat is the largest online food ordering platform in the Middle East. Users can order from over 4,300 restaurant partners including brands such as Burger King, KFC, Pizza Hut, Papa John’s and Subway, as well as local eateries from different cuisines

Deliveroo

A great and reliable food delivery app in the UAE. The best thing about Deliveroo is their great customer service and delivery tracking on your phone. Deliveroo operates in two hundred cities in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, France, Belgium, Ireland, Spain, Italy, Australia, Singapore, United Arab Emirates, Hong Kong, Kuwait, and Taiwan.

Zomato

The popular food delivery app is originally an Indian restaurant aggregator and food delivery start up founded in 2008. Zomato provides information, menus and user-reviews of restaurants, and also has food delivery options from partner restaurants. They are also notorious for offering fantastic discounts.

Careem Now

Careem Now is a recently launched delivery app, powered by Careem. They'll buy your oder and deliver it to you. They also provide a courier service. So if you need a document dropped off at the visa office, or want to send your shoes for repair, you can use Careem now.

Uber Eats

Uber Eats is an American online food ordering and delivery platform launched by Uber in 2014.

Governmental services and bills

Dubai Now

From managing your utilities and bills, to listing down hospitals and clinics, checking flights information, all the way to lists of schools and their ratings by KHDA, the Dubai Now App is a one-stop source for all your government service needs. It is the first unified Dubai government services smart app offering over 70 government and private sector services from 32 participating entities including health, security, education, transport and more; contributing to global efforts of accelerating the time needed to get things done.

Toys for kids

Mumzworld

Founded in 2011, Mumzworld was founded by busy parents who have one goal in mind, to create a pool of information about a wide range of children's products not readily available at malls or other online stores in the Middle East. Now this site offers branded items with free delivery for every Dh200 worth of orders within the UAE and KSA. Each time you buy online, the site offers rewards through their Mumz Loyalty Program with lots of members-only benefits.

Do you have any apps that just save your life? Tweet to us @gulf_news