Sherif Khairy
Featured image via abcnews.go.com
Living in the capital requires a certain finesse, and while it may seem random to outsiders, locals know it to be a skill developed over time in our beloved Cairo. But to make things easier, technology has taken long strides in digitising our small tasks, making for a less cluttered and unorganised city life. This is exactly why, as your guide to living in the capital, we’ve comprised a list of Apps that will make your life easier in Cairo.
Food Apps
Starting off as just a website a long, long time ago. Otlob was Cairo’s first digitised fast food ordering solution. It stayed in the dark for a lot of years until the world finally caught up to it, and it became one of the most popular apps in Egypt. Otlob allows you to order food from a ton of restaurants, and they constantly have offers for frugal users.
Uber Eats is not new to the world, but it’s quite new in Cairo. Operating only in central Cairo at the moment, Uber Eats brings you food from a wide variety of restaurants, and gives you updates on when your order has been picked up, and how long it will take to reach you. It also offers different restaurants from Otlob.
The third entry into the app food ordering game, Glovo is much more comprehensive. Aside from the vast array of restaurants on offer, they can buy you stuff from a pharmacy or a supermarket. You can even use them as a courier service to deliver packages, or use their Custom Glovo option to add a shop they may not have. What’s special about Glovo is that they use bicycles as well as motorcycles, in an effort to be more environmentally-friendly.
One of the most comprehensive options for checking out the full menu of a restaurant, Elmenus have taken the Egyptian market by storm and become the go-to place for online menu browsing. They’ve just launched their online ordering option but it’s still in the initial phases. A fourth contender enters the market.
Transportation Apps
Long before Google Maps hit Egypt, Bey2ollak was the number one app for Cairenes to find out which roads are running smoothly and which are not. Even now, Bey2ollak remains quite helpful. Unlike Google, you can get insider information on what the problem is actually all about, and it remains very useful for travelling to Sahel and knowing where speed cameras are.
The two most prominent ride-hailing apps in Cairo, never leave your phone without one of these Apps or even both of them. You can compare the rates of both, car availability, and whether you have a promo code or not, your preference will be probably be ever-changing so it’s best to keep both options.
Cairo’s premium transportation app. If you have somewhere important to go and want to do it in style, London Cab is perfect for that. It works for airport rides thanks to their comfortable chairs and large luggage spaces, and it may also be a nice twist on a date.
While Uber & Careem are comfortable choices, using them on a daily basis may deplete most of your salary, but thankfully, Swvl & Buseet are here to solve the problem. They offer a number of comfortable busses to take hardworking commuters from point A to point B, and with flexible plans and multiple routes, your daily commutes can now be both cheap and comfortable.
Shopping
ValU is Cairo’s digitised installment plan app. It allows you to buy all the things you want right now from a ton of affiliated shops, and pay for them through flexible installment plans. You can get to know more about them from our feature article.
Online shopping in Cairo just got way easier thanks to these two. They’ve been around for quite some time in Egypt, and we’re glad to see how the competition keeps pushing both to improve themselves. Nothing like competition to make customers more and more satisfied.
Houses can get cluttered in no time, and if you look around your house, you’ll most probably find somewhat valuable items that you no longer use. So if you want to organise your house and get a little bit extra cash, use OLX Arabia to offload these unwanted items, or find used items that you may need.
While putting cars under the category of shopping is quite a stretch, Contact Cars have actually made it quite easy to browse for cars in Cairo. You can put your used car up there for sale, browse new and used cars, including prices and a quick brief of their options.
Events & More
Last, but definitely not least, Cairo 360 has its own app which allows you to check out all our latest articles with ease on your smartphone. You can also stay updated with the latest film and food reviews to plan out your evenings, or find out about the top events happening right now in the capital.
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