If you have Facebook app installed on your phone, you know the amount of space it takes. A minimum of 50mb or more.. The app itself weighs over 35mb, and once you start using it, the app consumes over 200mb on average. Installing and using such a heavy-weight app takes up resources, not only phone resources, but your mobile internet data resources as well. For users who have high end phones and stable 3G connections, it should not be a problem. However, for majority of users, especially in India, that is asking for a lot.
Facebook clearly understands this problem and they have now released a extremely lean and light-weight app called Facebook Lite, which is optimized for low-end Android devices and developed specifically for users in emerging markets.
Facebook Lite will be hugely important in markets like India and other Asia-Pacific countries, where low-cost smartphone sales are soaring. It gives those without fast data speeds the ability to access the biggest social network on the planet.
But it may be useful to Facebook fans in Western countries, too. While your high-end smartphone may be able to run the regular Facebook app without any issues, you may not need all of the features it brings and might prefer a snappier experience instead. It may also be ideal for those who live or work in rural areas where data connectivity isn’t so good.
Looks and UI
On startup, the app shows a facebook logo and indicates the app is loading, I thought it was just for the first time but it happens every time, which is not at all good. Even with 2GB of RAM, the app takes a few seconds to load and then it shows the news feed. Just like the basic mobile site, it also shows ‘People you may know” and posts in groups, posts by pages you have liked. So, no limitations in the news feed, through photos take a little time. One thing is not there, swipe to switch between new feed, notifications, friend requests and messages. You need to tap the icons to switch among the tabs.
Features
I must admit that, there are very little limitation within the app, you can update your status, add location, upload photos, tag friends and also can update activity. You can check notifications and friend requests and the best part is that in the Facebook Lite, Facebook has integrated messaging, which is not present now in the Facebook app on Android, and on Windows as Facebook removed the messaging feature and imposed the Messenger. As you can see that, in the Facebook Lite you won’t have to make much efforts to update anything. The uploader works well, and on Wi-Fi, it was like a flash, so you shouldn’t face any problems with that. The notifications work well and you can enable or disable different types of notifications in the app settings.
The new version of the site appears to be much cleaner and simpler. It appears, at a quick glance, to be a better site for Facebook newbies or for anyone who finds the current site overwhelming or noisy. It also pushes the old-school Facebook apps off a cliff, which is just as well for the newest Facebook-connected services. Try it at lite.facebook.com.
The major visual change in Facebook Lite, compared Facebook "Classic," is simply that most of the the navigation and info page that was on the left of the page is now gone. The user is not distracted by the mostly superfluous details that resided there. The input box is also gone, replaced by buttons (Write, Post Photos, Post Video) that pop down the actual input forms only when needed.
Facebook already has its Internet.org project, which provides free access to a range of mobile internet services including, of course, Facebook. Internet.org is currently limited to a selection of countries in Africa at this point and, since it is being developed in partnership with carriers and other telecom industry players, launches are time and resource intensive: so why not pull together a ‘Lite’ app that can potentially be pushed to millions overnight, that’s Facebook’s thinking here.
If you’re in one of the aforementioned eight countries where Facebook Lite has launched — and you have an Android phone — then you can check it out here.
The early signs seem positive. The app has already crossed 10,000 downloads at the time of writing, with a 4.6 rating from an initial 693 reviewers. The few early users tweeting about it seem impressed too.