Instagram Lite App Launched for Low Data, Basic Users: Here’s What it’ll Come With

Instagram Lite is targeted at users still on the 2G network, therefore looking to appeal to an entirely new set of users in India.

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Instagram has launched Instagram Lite, the lightweight version of its main Instagram app that is designed to work on basic, low resource smartphones and 2G networks. Instagram Lite is now available on the Google Play Store, and is not restricted in availability and devices. Hence, any user can download Instagram Lite, including those who use considerably more powerful phones and are on faster networks. Instagram Lite aims to offer a basic usage framework for first time Instagram users, showing them most of the app’s best features, without stalling the usage experience too much.

The Instagram Lite app looks almost entirely like an older version of the main Instagram interface, which means that despite being a ‘lite’ app, it still looks fairly updated. It gets the explore feed integrated into the bottom menu just like the older Instagram interface, and the explore feed itself does not have the dynamic grid layout that the main Instagram app presently does. Instagram Lite misses out on ‘dark mode’ in the app, but given that the app is designed to work on basic phones and in slow networks, such aesthetic elements will likely not play such a big role. Instagram Lite is only 2MB in size, and was made live on the Google Play Store on December 9 ahead of its official launch and announcement today.

The launch of the app for India was announced by Vishal Shah, vice-president of product at Instagram, in the ongoing Facebook Fuel for India 2020 conference. The announcement comes in line with Instagram’s vision of focusing even more on creators, small and micro businesses. During the sessions, Instagram reiterated its focus on original content creators on the platform, alongside elements such as introducing new business and monetisation labels for companies to use on its platform.

Instagram Lite, despite running on 2G, will also feature the Instagram Stories feature, and allow users to both see and post disappearing stories of their own, on the platform.