Instagram is typically in the game of adding new (and often competing) features to its app.
But that doesn’t quite tell the whole story as far as Instagram’s target audience is concerned. Along with parent company Facebook, the app literally wants everyone in the world on it and sometimes that means offering a feature-light version that skimps on data but offers the same core experience users expect.
Enter Instagram Lite, a stripped-down version of the core app that won’t wreck and data plan and should be able to work with spotty network connections.
Director of Product Management at Facebook Tel Aviv Tzach Hadar said of the Lite app: “Our teams build these lightweight versions of our apps for people with low connectivity or limited data plans because our basic premise is to leave no one behind. We wanted the Instagram experience to remain fast, high-quality and reliable, irrespective of the device, platform and network people are on.”
Thankfully, Facebook doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel with Instagram Lite and the company has a roadmap for how to proceed called Facebook Lite. Using that app’s development – and what they learned from it – the team behind the Instagram Lite app was able to balance what the app handles itself with what is done in the cloud.
Instagram writes on their blog of the Lite app’s development: “What the team came up with is an app that requires only 2 MB to download on Android — considerably less than the full-size version, which was closer to 30 MB — but retains the key features that people using entry-level devices want. To keep those features on the smaller app, the team took a page from Facebook Lite, another Tel Aviv creation that debuted a few years ago, by offloading into the cloud much of the code from the app running on the phone.”
Do you a data-lite Instagram app will have broad appeal even with users that have somewhat unlimited data plans and access? Let us know your thoughts on this story in the comments below.
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