Set up life · Chapter 15
Apps to Download
The app stack for your first 90 days, mapped to the Indian apps you already know. Download the transport, food, and community rows on wifi, day 2–3; come back for the rest as each need lands.
How to read the tags: everything here works with any number unless marked. [US number] means it won’t work properly until your US eSIM is live. [SSN] means full features unlock only after US identity verification. The SIM & Phone guide gets you the number; article 31 gets you the SSN.
One honest note before the list. This page’s own advice — download the stack day 2–3 — only half works. A third of these apps can’t do anything until something else exists first: Zelle needs a US bank account, Venmo’s real limits need an SSN, the parking apps need a car. Download in layers. Day 2–3 is for transport, food, and community; the money and driving rows activate over weeks 2–6 as the banking and DMV threads land.
Jargon: VoIP — an internet-based phone number (Google Voice, Skype). US banks treat these as unverifiable; several apps below reject them.
Transport — day 1
Uber / Lyft
≈ Ola
Have both; prices differ per ride, so check each. Your Indian Uber login carries over — add a US payment method rather than making a fresh account.
Waymo One
- US number
Driverless robotaxi, no Indian equivalent. As of July 2026 it covers 260+ square miles of the Bay, runs on freeways (rolling out account by account — check yours), and serves SFO from the Rental Car Center, a short AirTrain hop from the terminals. Not terminal curbside yet. Pricing runs roughly 13% above Uber before tips, and you don’t tip a robot. → Getting Around (#11).
Transit
Live Muni/BART/Caltrain arrivals and routing. Google Maps works; Transit’s real-time data is better.
Bay Wheels
Bike share; e-bikes flatten SF’s hills. Current rates in Getting Around (#11).
Lives inside the Lyft app — nothing separate to install.
Clipper
Skip the standalone app; add the card to Apple/Google Wallet and load $20. From August 1, 2026, single rides are gone from MuniMobile — pay with Clipper, or tap any contactless credit or debit card straight on the faregate reader (adult fares only) (SFMTA). Day-1 essential.
Not a standalone app — add the card to Apple/Google Wallet.
Money — weeks 1–6, in sequence
Your bank's own app
This is where Zelle lives; most people never install the standalone Zelle app. Open the account in-branch with passport + visa. → Banking (#7).
Zelle
- US number
- SSN
The closest thing to UPI, but bank-to-bank with no wallet: instant, free, and how rent and deposits actually move. Needs a US bank account, and it rejects VoIP numbers — Google Voice won’t work (Zelle, Bank of America).
Venmo
- US number
- SSN
Social payments for splitting dinner. Usable unverified with a $299.99/week cap; identity verification lifts it to $60,000/week (Venmo). I’d run it unverified through month 1 and verify the week your SSN card arrives.
Splitwise
Expense splitting with housemates; you already know it from India. Pairs with Venmo.
Wise
INR→USD at near-mid-market rates; set it up with your Indian bank before you fly. The India-side rules on moving real money — LRS limits, TCS, the 1 April reset — live in Remote Setup (#14) and Money (#6). Wise is the app, not the strategy.
Zolve
A US credit card you can apply for from India, no SSN needed (Zolve). One of the two fastest routes to a US credit file; the other, Nova Credit’s CIBIL translation, has a partner list that keeps shifting — check it live the week you apply. → Money, Credit & ITIN (#6).
Food & groceries — week 1
DoorDash / Uber Eats
≈ Swiggy/Zomato
DoorDash has wider coverage. Delivery here runs roughly 2–3x India once fees stack; treat it as a treat, not a default.
Instacart
≈ BigBasket
Not Blinkit: same-day, not 10-minute. Groceries from Safeway or Costco, delivered.
Weee!
Asian-grocery delivery with a strong Indian selection in the Bay. Bridges you until you find your local Indian store — the store list is in the Day 0–7 Checklist (#13).
Yelp
≈ the discovery half of Zomato
Americans live by reviews; also how you find urgent care, barbers, and mechanics.
Community — weeks 1–2
Luma
Where SF founder and AI events live. Subscribe to luma.com/sf and luma.com/ai-sf; this is your social calendar for month 1.
Partiful
- US number
How people under 35 host parties. It’s SMS-first — login and invites run on texts from a US short code — so it only really works once your US number is live.
Meetup
Older-school; still good for niche tech and hiking groups.
X (Twitter)
SF tech’s town square. DMs here open more doors than LinkedIn.
Housing search — weeks 2–4
Zillow / Zumper
The browse layer. Zumper is also where this guide’s SF rent data comes from.
Craigslist
Real sublet inventory, real scams. In-person viewings only; never send a deposit before you’ve held keys.
Facebook groups + DirectorySF
The tech-sublet arbitrage: departing-tech-worker handoffs at below-market rents. → Landing Pad (#12).
Airbnb
Search 28+ nights so the monthly discount actually shows. → Landing Pad (#12).
The lease-without-US-credit playbook — rental resume, guarantor services — is in Housing & Neighborhoods (#9). Apps find the place; that page gets you approved.
Health — the gap weeks and month 1
GoodRx
Discount coupons at any pharmacy, no insurance needed. This is the app for the uninsured gap between landing and your Covered California plan starting; prescription prices drop sharply with a coupon at the counter.
Zocdoc
Book doctors and dentists by insurance, specialty, and rating. Free.
Amazon One Medical
Same-day primary care: $199/year, or $99/year with a US Prime membership; one-off virtual visits start at $29 with no membership at all (Amazon). Worth being clear about what it isn’t: a membership, not insurance. You still need the marketplace plan, and the 60-day clock in the Health Insurance guide still applies.
CVS / Walgreens
Pharmacy apps for refills once you have prescriptions on this side.
Driving — whenever the car happens
ParkMobile or HotSpot
SpotAngels
Free map of every street-parking rule, with reminders before street cleaning (SpotAngels). The street-cleaning ticket is the classic newcomer tax; this is how you stop paying it.
Zipcar / Turo
Hourly and peer-to-peer rentals for weekend trips. Getaround, the old third option, shut its US operations in February 2025 — strike it from any older list you’re following.
- The licence clock (10 days of residency), the IDP bridge, and the DMV sequence are in Remote Setup (#14) and Getting Around (#11). No app fixes those.
Home, city and mail — month 1
SF311
Report broken streetlights and dumped mattresses; also the front door for most city services.
USPS Informed Delivery
Emails you scans of the day’s incoming mail. When half your month-1 paperwork — SSN card, debit cards, DMV letters — arrives by post, knowing what’s coming matters.
MyShake + AlertSF
Earthquake early warning, plus the city’s emergency alerts (text your ZIP to 888-777). Two minutes of setup; the full kit is in the emergencies guide.
Nextdoor
Hyper-local tips and lost-cat drama in equal measure. Useful for furniture and neighborhood intel; mute liberally.
The India connection — ongoing
Stays registered on your Indian number and runs fine on US data; groups and history stay intact. Don’t migrate it to the US number.
Your Indian bank apps + DigiLocker
Keep them installed and logged in. Every one of them authenticates by SMS to your Indian number, which is why the roaming setup in the SIM & Phone guide is non-negotiable.
Willow
Cricket’s US home: IPL and ICC tournaments, $9.99/month or $79.99/year direct at willow.tv, also available as a Prime Video channel. Most India matches land in early-morning Pacific hours, so the replays matter as much as the live feed.
JioHotstar
The honest answer: there is no US app. The full Indian library is geo-blocked, a thin slice of Hotstar content surfaces on Hulu through the Disney bundle, and that’s the legal ceiling right now. Netflix and Prime Video carry deep Indian catalogs natively, and cricket has Willow — but if your must-watch lives only on JioHotstar, nothing on this page solves that cleanly.
Amazon
Your Indian login works on Amazon.com; add a US card and address. Your Prime doesn’t: Amazon.in Prime and Amazon.com Prime are separate subscriptions, and the .com one is what unlocks the One Medical discount above.
Practical
- Google Maps offline — download the SF Bay map; Muni tunnels and dead zones exist. Also your walking-navigation default.
- AllTrails — the Bay’s real perk is trails 30 minutes out (Marin, Peninsula). Free tier is enough to start.
Do this now
- ☐ Download the transport row on day 1, everything else in layers over week 1
- ☐ Add Clipper to your phone wallet and load $20
- ☐ Set up Wise with your Indian bank before you fly
- ☐ Subscribe to the two Luma calendars and RSVP to one event this week
- ☐ Sign up for USPS Informed Delivery the day you have a stable mailing address
- ☐ After your US bank account opens, enroll in Zelle inside the banking app
- ☐ The week your SSN arrives, verify Venmo and add the SSN to every existing account
Nobody tells you
- Zelle lives inside your bank’s app — most people never download the standalone app. If enrollment fails, it’s usually a VoIP/Google Voice number; use your real US carrier number.
- Your Indian Uber, Amazon, and Google logins carry over — don’t create fresh accounts, just add a US payment method. But US prices on Indian cards eat roughly 3–4% in forex markup until your US card arrives.
- Partiful and Zelle are the two apps that genuinely gate on a US phone number — a $20 prepaid eSIM with a real US number unlocks both, which is another reason to sort the SIM before anything else.
- Google Pay India and US Google Wallet are different products. Your UPI stack doesn’t work at US terminals; tap-to-pay here runs through Apple or Google Wallet with a card behind it.
- Selling or buying furniture on Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace: Zelle has no buyer protection. Treat it like handing over cash, in person only.
- Anyone who landed before June 2026 will tell you to get PayByPhone for parking. The city switched; they’re a month out of date. ParkMobile or HotSpot.
Sources & further reading
- SFMTA — MuniMobile — the August 1, 2026 single-ride change, official.
- SFMTA — pay to park with your phone — ParkMobile and HotSpot as the official meter apps, $0.35 fee.
- Axios SF — PayByPhone stopped working at SF meters — the June 1 cutover.
- Waymo — rides at SFO — official launch post; Rental Car Center via AirTrain.
- Venmo — personal profile payment limits — the $299.99 unverified cap, official.
- Zelle — number enrollment FAQ and Bank of America — Zelle FAQs — the VoIP and Google Voice exclusion.
- Amazon One Medical — pricing and FAQ — $199/yr, $99/yr with Prime, per-visit from $29.
- Willow — US cricket subscriptions, direct.
- Zolve — the no-SSN card, applied for from India.
- Getaround — winding down US carsharing — why it’s off the rentals list.
- SpotAngels — SF street cleaning map — rules and reminders.
- Clipper — Muni on Clipper — fares and transfers, official.
- Luma — luma.com/sf and luma.com/ai-sf — the two calendars that matter.