Having lightweight versions of already established apps seems to be one of the current trends for developers right now. It goes to show that they are now placing importance on developing markets where devices aren’t always that high-end and where the Internet isn’t always that fast but people are still attached to their smartphones and their apps. It looks like Facebook has quietly released Instagram Lite on Google Play Store, making it available to download for billions of people in selected markets.
The app is just 573 KB so even if your device only has a few GB left, you do not have to uninstall apps or delete photos and videos just to be able to install this app. And of course, you also don’t need to have fast Internet or take up a lot of your data allocation because of its size, which is just 1/55th of the size of the main Instagram app. While there is no official announcement, they did confirm that they started testing the Lite app in Mexico this week.
Obviously, since it’s a lightweight version, you can’t do everything that you can on the original app. You can browse your feed, upload photos and add filters to them on both your feed and your Stories. You can also browse the Explore page if you want to look for other accounts to follow or be inspired by specific hashtags and posts. What you can’t do is upload videos on your feed and Stories and you also don’t have the Direct Message feature here.
You can download the Instagram Lite app for free from the Google Play Store. It’s not working yet in all territories though and at this point, since there’s no official word yet, we don’t know where it’s available right now.
