The “Lite” app has been known for years but became popular with Android Go, an initiative to develop inexpensive, low-end phones for people in low-income countries. This initiative aimed to create a lightweight app that works well on phones with low RAM and CPU power. This could have been a slimmed down benefit for anyone with an Android phone. Unfortunately, the developers have decided to work around this.
There are even situations where people in developed countries with high-end phones can access simpler, less resource-intensive versions of apps. Maybe you’re in between. Some even travel to areas with poor reception. Let’s talk about why.
Many Lite apps are currently only available in certain countries or regions. Others only work on mid-range or low-end devices. Especially when the option to make your app available to everyone is as simple as checking a few boxes on the Google Play developer dashboard, there’s not much point or sense. It’s not the most talked about or controversial, but the Lite app is exemplary and should be available to everyone.
If you’re asked what you think are the most resource-consuming apps on Android, you’ll probably mention the apps on this list. If you don’t mind clicking, Facebook, WhatsApp, YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat can guess the culprit. As you know, these are the most popular mobile apps with the highest number of downloads.
The bigger the battery and the more influential the hardware, the more apps will benefit.
These apps have maintained similar lists over the years. As technology becomes more powerful, every big company wants to make the most of it by making their apps perform more, consume more resources, and consume more data. I’m here. These apps use more permissions than ever before, increasing the data collected.
This is usually not a bad thing. After all, more resources and overhead mean better performance. The problem is that the net benefit of buying new hardware is often negated as developers keep adding extra stuff to exhaust those resources.
The result is frustrating. Even low-end devices now had more resources at their disposal than a phone did a decade ago, but low-end phones still feel slow when they really shouldn’t.
Facebook Lite, on the other hand, is under 5MB, doesn’t preload feeds, and doesn’t autoplay videos by default unless you’re connected to Wi-Fi. It uses about 25% fewer permissions than the full Facebook app. Yes, you lose a few other features and scrolling feeds is a bit slower, but at least you’ll know when Facebook Lite is using your data. Facebook Lite just runs less often and uses less data when you’re not using the app. The trade-off is longer battery life, less background usage, and fewer running background tasks. It would be nice if these benefits were available on all phones, not just low-end ones.
What are the main differences? Facebook vs. Facebook Lite Most lightweight apps are in no way inferior to full-fledged apps like Facebook. Typically, developers value the wow factor more than ease of use. After all, they try to lure you to their app and keep you there for as long as possible, even if it means draining your battery.
Lite apps aren’t just about better resources. They are physically easier to use and require less manipulation to access important things. Following Facebook’s lead, most people want a complete guide on how to change their settings on the regular Facebook app. For example, see how to turn off video auto-play in your news feed. Click on your profile picture, then click Settings & PrivacyClick to view the list of settings. Then click on your profile picture again to finally get to media and contacts. In other words, five levels of menus for changing a location.
Complexity, disk space, and resource usage are significantly higher for full apps than for lite apps. On Facebook Lite? Click on your profile picture and then set the video autoplay option. It is on a rather long list, but it appears after only two interactions, reducing the user’s effort by 60%. Optimizing for low usage often means developing more optimized apps that benefit everyone.
The point is that the difference between a lite app and a full app is not small. Complexity, storage space and resource consumption are objectively and measurably significantly higher for full apps than for lite apps.
Summary of the news:
- Lite apps are exemplary and should be available on all Android devices
- Check all news and articles of the latest security news updates.
