The CEO of Google Sundar Pachai once said “data is like currency”. It was in a keynote speech when he introduce youtube Go in India. It was built for low end phones and also more specifically to not consume data when watching youtube videos. That statement is very true when it comes to developing countries like India Mexico Africa etc. Facebook had seen the “lite” with the facebook lite app. (Pun intended). Facebook Messenger, Twitter, Uber, LinkedIn, Skype, Shazam, and all of Google’s Go apps have gone lite. Instagram is now joining the fold with its own Lite app.
Instagram Lite takes after the redesigned mobile web app that launched last year — in fact, I think its just a wrapper around it because they look exactly the same and also because it doesn’t open at all without internet connection.
It doesn’t have all of Instagram’s features yet, but you can see your timeline, explore posts, upload your own, search, and most importantly, view/publish Stories. So far, direct messaging is missing and you can’t upload videos or tag people, but Instagram says some of these will be coming later. Notifications are not working; the app has settings to receive email and SMS, but not push notifications from interactions with your photos and stories. There are no measures to restrict its data consumption like reducing image and video quality yet which i feel is a basic settings any lite app should have.
According to TechCrunch, Instagram Lite has begun testing in Mexico this week and will expand to more countries later in the year. If you want to give it a go and you live in Mexico, you can grab it from the link below. Otherwise, we have it up over on APKmirror for you to sideload.
