Today we are here to review some of the best Kpop apps you can find in 2022. WeVerse, Universe, Lysn, Bubble, Phoning, and Fab are unique apps and every one of them has its advantages and disadvantages over others.
Although it has been painfully slow to digitize these relationships, the K-pop industry has always been adept at exploiting fan-artist interactions. Up until 2019, official fan networks were housed on Korean-language forums, and items and CDs were frequently only accessible through independent websites.
For a fee, a few platforms have emerged in the last three years that offer monetized exclusivity and the chance to communicate with your favorite artists. Because fans are still eager to pay for content from their heroes, despite the constant updates made by K-pop musicians on platforms like Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, and Tiktok. Today’s leading Kpop apps provide one-stop shopping for items, exclusive video content, fan interaction, and personal posts from artists.
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Best Kpop apps (2022)
WeVerse, Universe, and Lysn are the three primary companies, and they collectively host the content of more than 100 performers in the industry. We compared them to more recent, specialized apps like Phoning and Fab and broke down their key features, cost, and pros, and downsides.
These are the best Kpop apps in 2022:
- WeVerse
- Universe
- Lysn
- Bubble
- Phoning
- Fab
Let’s explore them.
WeVerse
Weverse is owned and run by HYBE Entertainment, the organization in charge of BTS. It is one of the best Kpop apps you can use in 2022. For 63 acts from HYBE (BTS, TXT, Seventeen), YG Entertainment (Blackpink, IKON, Treasure), tiny and independent labels (CL, Sunmi, Everglow, Oneus), and a few non-Korean talents, it offers exclusive free and paid material. The app had more than 6.8 million monthly users as of March 2022. WeVerse has the potential to develop into the most comprehensive fan community app available with the support and direction of HYBE.
Fans can post, comment on other fans’ postings, and view WeVerse-exclusive images, videos, and text updates from their favorite artists by joining a free community for that artist. While a notification tab allows you to switch between posts from one artist at a time, a home feed mixes posts from the artists you follow with suggested content from other artists to encourage discovery.
The Weverse Shop offers official swag and fan memberships, and WeVerse Magazine provides editorial content that is incorporated throughout the Kpop app. Since WeVerse and live streaming service VLive merged, a live streaming function has been implemented.
The most extensive and user-friendly platform on this list, WeVerse includes original programming, products, and fan-to-fan and fan-artist interaction. HYBE artists in particular appear to let go a little more, displaying their personalities in posts, comments, and pictures because WeVerse is a closed site (as opposed to, say, Twitter).
If you’re a fan of a WeVerse artist, you’ll need to sign up and download the Kpop app eventually as a lot of their goods and content aren’t sold elsewhere. Although the home feed appears to have some content control, the site’s lack of moderation of fan-made postings has resulted in widespread bigotry and abusive language inside specific fandoms. Given that users can select a different display name in each group they join, there is a considerable element of anonymity (and lack of accountability).
WeVerse is a free to download app but there are in-app purchases. Did you check out the new BTS merch prepared specially for the 2022 Las Vegas concert?
Universe
Universe benefits from the substantial financial support of HYBE, whilst Universe makes use of the assets of renowned video game producer NCSoft. With a ton of unique material, including significant investment in app-exclusive music videos and original programs, Universe made a big sensation when it launched in January 2022.
Planets, or online communities for musicians, let fans join for nothing. Photographs appear to be the main draw on the universe, despite artists’ ability to put text and films into their worlds. Like WeVerse, Universe showcases outstanding, expertly created original content and provides privileged subscriptions and goods. The use of AI to read artists’ posts aloud is the Kpop app’s most distinctive feature. Fans can also pay for a direct message from an artist, who can then respond to the entire group but who can only read the messages in what is essentially a big group chat.
Hearing an artist communicate their ideas in their own voice is very cool. In addition to artist uploads that are exclusive to Universe, creative content created by Universe is a major lure.
When Universe first started, it was clumsy and dependent on unsettling AI-based features, but it has now trimmed back and become much more simple. However, using it can still be challenging. The program is over-designed (why are communities referred to as “planets?” is just one example), and its monetary structure is so challenging to grasp that users have made tutorial films to help other users. Since a lot of the stuff created by Universe artists is exclusive to the Kpop app, if you’re a fan, you’ll eventually need to sign up and download it.
Universe is free to download, you can watch select content and see artist posts in the Kpop app. Three kinds of currency exist within Universe: Klap (currency earned through completing tasks that can also be purchased), Love (purchased currency), and raffle tickets (also purchased). You can only pay for certain content with Love. Bundles of these currencies can be purchased on the app for anywhere from $.99 to $299.
Phoning
NewJeans, the newest female group from HYBE, said they would create their own app rather than joining their label colleagues on WeVerse as part of the pre-album release roll out. The aesthetic of the debut album and Gen Z’s current infatuation with Y2K nostalgia pair well with Phoning’s ’90s Nokia-chic concept.
The users of NewJeans can add each other as “friends” in a contact list using the software, which simulates a phone. Live streams are presented to you as a member’s “call,” which you can pick up to view in real time or access on-demand at a later time via a call record.
Members converse with one another in a group chat for roughly 20 minutes each day, exchanging messages and images. While watching the messages come in, fans are unable to participate or send direct notes to the members. The program also has a calendar of group events, a photo gallery, a virtual try-on function where you may dress avatars of the members in various clothing, a feature for decorating virtual albums, and a few other entertaining extras.
Phoning is cute, and it feels like a new, concrete extension of NewJeans’ music with its contemporary take on Y2K aesthetics. Additionally, all of its features are free and distinctive enough to be unavailable elsewhere.
Calling takes forever—like it’s 1999.” The navigation is somewhat difficult to understand, and pages can take a while to load. Furthermore, there is no opportunity to communicate with other fans via the Kpop app. There are just two options for changing notification settings, and a frequent 20-minute discussion among the participants generates hundreds of notifications each day. Therefore, you must decide between receiving no-app notifications and numerous ones.
Phoning is a free-to-use application. This makes it one of the best Kpop apps to have!
Bubble
SM Entertainment developed Bubble as a platform for its artists to interact with their followers. Lysn is the name of the Bubble app for SM groups, and “JYP Bubble” is the name of the company’s exclusive Kpop app for JYP Entertainment artists. Fans can access an artist’s bubble and view content from their favorite artists that is only available on the app by paying.
You can browse and download an artist’s images, films, and audio notes once you’ve paid for a subscription. Messages to that artist are also possible, but you are only allowed three at once and a certain number of characters depending on how long you’ve been using the app: 30 characters for the first 49 days, 50 characters after that, and so on.
Like on Universe, artists can respond to the entire group when they see these messages in what is essentially a big group chat, but they cannot reply to a fan directly. The user experience mimics a one-on-one conversation between you and the artist for fans. Bubble for JYP recently received a live streaming capability.
You are paying for exclusive content that won’t be offered elsewhere. Fans do tweet about Bubble content, although doing so is against the law and is typically disapproved of by other fans.
Bubble doesn’t create original material, enable fan communication, or provide users access to a shop. All artist content is accessible for a fee. Similar to Universe, messaging an artist is only one-way.
So even if you ask a musician what they had for lunch, you can never be sure if they read your question, are responding to someone else’s query, or are merely updating their followers on their day when they write, “I had a salad earlier!” However, other supporters claim they don’t mind. Additionally, the translation option doesn’t always provide proper results, which has resulted in some hilarious but perplexing mishaps.
Bubble is free to download, but in order to access a specific artist’s Bubble for one month, you must purchase one ($3.99), two ($6.99), or three ($9.99) tickets.
Fab
Loona served as the platform’s first artist when Fab debuted in February 2022. They included group NINE.i in March.
In the Kpop app, each member of Loona is treated as a single artist, and they post independently. Collectively, NINE.i posts. The “status” that Loona users occasionally update is accessible for free, but all other posts are blocked by a paywall.
You are paying for exclusive content that won’t be offered elsewhere. You should be using this app if you enjoy Orbit or NINE.i.
This is not the Kpop app for you if you don’t like the two artists on Fab. There is no means to interact with other fans, no original content, and only sponsored artist posts are allowed.
Downloading Fab is free, but viewing each post pays 10 points. You can either buy points (ranging from 100 for $.99 to 2300 for $19.99) or earn individual points by watching advertisements. You can also check out the best apps to protect your WhatsApp messages!
