Instagram Lite Offers Photo Sharing on Android for 1/55th the App Size

Instagram has quietly launched a new app called “Instagram Lite” for Android on the Google Play App Store. It’s a lightweight app that provides the joy of photo sharing while barely taking up any storage space on your smartphone.

The app has a file size of 573 kilobytes, or about 1/55th the size of the 32 megabytes used by Instagram’s popular primary app.

“The Instagram Lite app is small, allowing you to save space on your phone and download it quickly,” Instagram writes in the app’s description. An Instagram spokesperson tells TechCrunch that the app also uses less data and launches faster.

It contains most of Instagram’s core features, including posting photos, editing pictures with filters, sharing multiple photos in stories (and adding text), watching other people’s stories, and browsing content on the Explore tab. For now, the app lacks the ability to message friends and share videos, but Instagram says those features are coming soon as well.

Instagram recently crossed the 1 billion active user threshold, but for continued growth, the Facebook-owned app will need to spread to developing regions of the world in which people use older phones with less storage space and slower Internet connections.

TechCrunch reports that this app is Instagram’s latest push into the developing world after having launched a revamped minimal mobile website that was also designed with the same market in mind.

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