NEWS
NEWS
NEWS
Facebook launches low resource ‘Facebook Lite’ app in Asia
Facebook has announced the launch of Facebook Lite, a new Android-only app for Asian markets that pares down the social network’s features so that it can run on older phones and slower networks.
“More than a billion people around the world access Facebook from a range of mobile devices on varying networks,” Vijay Shankar, Product Manager for Facebook Lite, wrote on the official Facebook blog. “In many areas, networks can be slow and not able to support all the functionality found in Facebook for Android. Facebook Lite was built for these situations, giving people a reliable Facebook experience when bandwidth is at a minimum.”
The new app requires less than 1MB for installation, ensuring that the download will be quick and even the lowest memory phones can handle it.
The market targeted by Facebook Lite appears to be similar to the one targeted by Facebook’s internet connectivity project, Internet.org. The Internet.org app is also designed to work on older phones in areas without reliable highspeed connections, but its Facebook app does not support photos or video.
Facebook Lite, on the other hand, supports “Facebook’s core experiences like News Feed, status updates, photos, notifications and more.”
An early version of Facebook Lite launched in eight developing nations earlier this year, including Bangladesh, Nepal, Nigeria, and others.
How Facebook Lite could improve the core app
While Facebook Lite will make it easier for people in emerging markets to use the social network, it could also free the core Facebook app from the constraints of low resource systems. After a trip to Africa in 2014, Facebook’s Alex Sourov wrote, “The lessons learned have already impacted the development of new features. We test all major features and changes in poor networking scenarios.”
By creating Facebook Lite as a separate app, the social network can develop new features for the core app without being as concerned about their impact on users in “poor networking scenarios.”
Facebook Lite is now available throughout Asia, and the app will be rolled out in the next few months to other markets in parts of Latin America, Africa and Europe.
Image credit: Facebook Inc (c)
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