Sunmi Works From Her Phone, Not the Studio
Sunmi named her phone as her most indispensable tool in an interview published on Oct. 10, 2026, describing a workflow built around Notes and Voice Memos for writing lyrics and making music. The Verge
The phone comes first. She said she would install KakaoTalk, a messaging app, first on a new phone. Her favorite gadget she has ever owned is the Samsung Z Fold 8 she is currently using, a phone that unfolds into a larger screen. She named the Samsung Galaxy series as the most underappreciated.
That setup reflects almost two decades of work. Sunmi debuted as a member of the Wonder Girls in 2007. The English version of the group's single "Nobody" was the first K-pop song to hit the Billboard Hot 100 in October 2009. She left the Wonder Girls in 2010 to go back to school, then rejoined the group in 2015.
Her solo work developed in parallel. She released her debut solo EP Full Moon in 2014 and won Song of the Year for "Gashina" at the Gaon Chart Music Awards. She released her first solo LP Heart Maid in 2025. She has also released the single "Forever July."
ABYSS Company, her label, describes her as an iconic global K-pop queen. ABYSS Company The same biography dates the start of her solo career to 2013 with the song '24 Hours' and lists a trilogy consisting of 'Gashina,' 'Heroine,' and 'Siren'.
In the interview, Sunmi laid out a compact software stack that stays in sync across devices. She said she has Notion, a workspace app for notes and group projects, pinned to her tab bar and uses it a lot for group projects. She added that Notion takes a long time to get used to and its UI could use improvement. Her current tabs are Notion, Google Drive, YouTube, and Claude, an AI assistant. Among social media platforms, she said she uses Instagram and X the most.
Her stated media habits are specific. Her happy place online is videos of people getting their ears cleaned on YouTube. Her fondest gaming memory is MapleStory by Nexon, which she played in elementary school.
She was direct about her own catalog. The creation she is most proud of is the song "Tail." When asked which creation she is least proud of, she identified "You Can't Sit with Us," noting it was the first song where she tried rapping.
The broader context here will be familiar to anyone who follows creative tools. A foldable for capture and review, built-in apps for quick ideas, Drive for shared files, Notion for group coordination, YouTube for reference and downtime, and an AI tab left open beside them. In my view the list matters less for any single app than for what is missing. No dedicated DAW, the studio software for recording and editing music, no complex plug-in chain, no studio-bound process in the day-to-day description. The point is speed between idea and capture. Voice Memos and Notes win because they are instant and always present. Over the long arc, that is hopeful, with professional work increasingly starting on general-purpose mobile hardware.
