Lite Apps for Android: How Different Are They From Regular Apps?

The lite version of apps are only available on Android phones and are sized below 1MB, supporting basic features.

Twitter Lite is originally sized at less than 1MB. 

(Photo: The Quint)

India is a big market for Android, and most people are buying phones for under Rs 15,000 according to most industry reports. When it comes to apps, Android is more accommodating than iOS, especially with respect to its sizes that doesn’t take a heavy toll of the phone’s storage space.

But even then, Google thought of working on apps in the ‘lite’ avatar that are primarily meant to run on entry-level smartphones, or support dual network conditions, which is highly prevalent in India.

Over the past couple of years, we’ve seen plenty of apps adopting the lite formula with a focus on adding more users to its base. But what separates a regular app from these lite apps and are they worth downloading with toned-down features?

‘Lite’ for Bharat

As the name suggests they are light in size, and some of these lack the basic interface that you’d get from the original version. For instance, the Newsfeed on Facebook Lite is a lot different from the regular Facebook app, which makes sure that it works effectively on network conditions with basic 2G internet speeds.

These apps are sized at less than 1MB and most of this has been achieved at the back end by developers of Android, whose primary motive is to connect a new set of users to the digital world.

The use of Lite apps is an interesting case study, one which took off from India, again because it is a market with one of the slowest mobile internet speeds in the world. This is despite the reach of 4G connectivity having increased ever since Reliance Jio came into the picture.

Internet speeds in India are even slower than countries like Pakistan and Sri Lanka. 

This and also, Google’s attempt to resurrect the Android One project in the form of Android Go, a light version of the popular mobile platform for which these Lite apps have been made.

Also, it is worth noting that Google is heavily focused on getting the next 300 to 400 million users in India hooked to the internet. Phones costing less than Rs 6,000 and able to run apps like Twitter and Facebook, is a win-win for all the respective parties.

Are Lite Apps Really Needed?

Now here’s the big question though. We’re in 2019 and most phone makers are easily able to offer their products with basic storage support of 64GB, further expandable in some cases.

That’s plenty of space to store images, music (if you don’t stream it) and other stuff without the need to worry about running out of storage. Technically speaking, we don’t see reason anymore to download apps of sizes lower than 1MB, when using regular apps isn’t going to give you space issues.

Most of Lite apps work on phones with Android version 5.0 Lollipop or higher

However, Google might say that its Android Go phones are tailor-made to support the Lite apps. These phones come with a maximum of 1GB RAM and basic storage up to 32GB, and that is probably where the Lite apps will feel at home. And before you ask, no, you don’t get lite versions of gaming apps.

For functionary apps like Uber, where the use of location (via GPS) is paramount, these Lite apps support Maps in a web version, that may not deliver the required performance levels.

Facebook Lite.

Lite Apps Available for Android

• Facebook Lite
• Facebook Messenger Lite
• Uber Lite
• Ola Lite
• Files Go
• YouTube Go
• Maps Go
• LinkedIn Lite
• Firefox Lite
• Skype Lite
• Shazam Lite
• Twitter Lite