2MB In Size, Instagram Lite Has Been Rebuilt For A No-Frills Experience

IG Lite

Lite apps are small, and especially popular in emerging markets where many people don’t own high-end smartphones or benefit from fast and cheap internet data.

Facebook has Facebook Lite and Messenger Lite. It also had an early version of Instagram Lite before it was terminated. But this time, the company is bringing that back after months abandoning it.

The social giant said that it is testing the redesigned Instagram Lite app in India, where it hopes to “gain valuable insights” about the lighter Instagram offering before “a global rollout” of the app later.

The redesigned Instagram Lite app is only 2 MB in size, meaning that it's extremely small. For this reason, it should not take so much space on low-end smartphones, or even on those phones with limited storage. What's more, Facebook promises a “fast, reliable, and responsive” experience of the social service.

But to make that happen, the Lite app lacks several core features of the full-fledged Instagram, including Reels, Shopping and IGTV.

Launching it first in India, the Android app supports multiple regional Indian languages, including Bangla, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Punjabi, Tamil and Telugu,

Facebook quietly abandoned the development of the initial Instagram Lite earlier this 2020 because the company had found some issues in the app. That according to Vishal Shah, VP of Product at Instagram.

It was then reported that a redesigned Instagram Lite app was spotted in the wild by some users in September. Facebook didn't acknowledge this.

And the redesigned Instagram here, is finally making its official debut during Facebook Fuel for India event.

“With the test of Instagram Lite, and the next edition of Born on Instagram, we’re aiming to democratize expression and creativity for a greater number of people in India. We’re also hoping to gain valuable insights before a global rollout of Instagram Lite,” Shah said.

The redesigned Instagram Lite puts emphasis on speed, performance, and responsiveness.

The overall experience of the app is similar to that of the full-fledged version of Instagram. Because it comes without some key functionalities, the no-frills version of the popular social media offers a clean and much lighter experience.

Instagram Lite.
Credit: Instagram/Google Play Store

People appreciate things when they are free, even when updates are rather slow.

But it should be noted that it's the updates themselves that keep an app's functionality smooth and user-friendly. It's the updates that make apps safer from bugs. So it's up to the developers of the app to constantly rely on user feedback to get the idea of how to improve.

In the modern days of the internet, people live in a fast-paced digital era.

Everyday, changes are made in the world of technology, and updates have become even more necessary to the point that lagging in the adoption of certain technology could result in falling into a void of irrelevancy.

Failing to meet the trends and demands are the recipes for failure of a tech-related business.

This is why app developers always want to update their apps, which eventually and unfortunately to some, will make the apps more and more bloated.

While some users of high-end devices won't complain much or consider this as a big issue, users that use less-capable devices will suffer the most.

At 2MB, Instagram Lite is built entirely based around the concept of “less is more”, despite the lack of some features.

This Lite app made its global debut in March 2021.

Published: 
29/12/2020