You know how your phone’s battery dies out an alarming rate, or how your data package gets used up pretty quickly? Most people start cursing their phone manufacturers inability to provide good batteries in the phone and random applications for eating their data. However, most often both problems can be traced to two apps: Facebook and Facebook Messenger. The apps are infamous for eating your data, slowing down your phone and killing your battery. As a result, Facebook released a lite version of their main app. Today, they released one of their Messenger app: Facebook Messenger Lite.
The new, austere Facebook Messenger Lite is currently only available to Android and even then, to a few markets. Those markets are specified as emerging markets by Facebook and include Kenya, Tunisia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Venezuela. Facebook will plan to roll out the app to more markets in the coming months.
Facebook Messenger Lite is tiny; it’s only 10MB in size, making it fast to install and lightning quick to start up. You won’t have to worry about missing out on a lot of features as it includes messaging, sending and receiving photos and links, and receiving stickers. Facebook deems all of those to be core features of Messenger. Messenger Lite uses the same bolt logo as Messenger, but with colors reversed. The bolt is blue with a white chat bubble background.
“Furthering our goal to empower people all over the world to stay connected, today we’re launching a new app called Messenger Lite, a standalone version of Messenger for Android. Messenger Lite is a slimmed down version of Messenger that offers the core features of Messenger for markets with slower than average internet speeds and a prevalence of basic Android smartphones. With Messenger Lite, people are able to quickly and easily send text, photos and links to anyone using Messenger or Messenger Lite.”
– Tom Mulcahy, Engineering Manager for Messenger Lite
With the release of Facebook Messenger Lite, you can expect an upwards trend when it comes to the usage of the platform; Facebook Messenger, despite its clunkiness and bulk, is utilised by more than a billion people around the world. A friendlier and easier-on-the-smartphone version of the app will only see the chat messenger expand its reach.
