Instagram Lite is now available in over 170 countries.

Instagram Lite is now available in over 170 countries.

Michelle Lourie found herself working in a shed on the kibbutz where she and her family live in Israel after COVID-19 closed the Facebook Inc. offices in Tel Aviv. It's a big cry from Tel Aviv, which has earned the title of "World Startup Capital" for its technological prowess. The product manager had to deal with the bleats of goats grazing outside and a patchy internet connection in addition to receiving visits from her three tiny children in her new digs.

It was the ideal location for her most recent endeavor. Lourie and her Tel Aviv team worked on Instagram Lite for a year in partnership with a New York-based team that included Instagram engineering, product, design, and research.

This new Android app is designed to give users in rural and distant areas a high-quality Instagram experience while using very little data. The app, which is now available in over 170 countries, couldn't have come at a better time. Instagram has been a lifeline for many people in the last year, allowing them to connect with loved ones or find a brief moment of inspiration, whether it's a photo of a friend's infant or a video of puppies discovering snow.

Accessing these daily doses of connection and enjoyment, however, is not easy for millions of individuals. In comparison to nearly 90% in North America, just more than 63 percent of the world's population is online. Many of the areas that are connected lack the most up-to-date mobile devices, reliable internet networks, or reasonable data plans required for fast delivery of Instagram's data-rich videos and photographs.

However, the epidemic itself hindered the process of producing that experience. Aside from the usual difficulties of working remotely, the team's market researchers were unable to test the product in target regions such as India and Brazil. Instead, they had to think beyond the box.

What the team came up with is an Android software that is only 2 MB in size (far less than the full-size version, which was closer to 30 MB), but includes all of the critical functionality that users with entry-level smartphones demand. To preserve those capabilities on the smaller app, the team followed in the footsteps of Facebook Lite, a Tel Aviv-based program that emerged a few years ago, by transferring much of the code from the phone app to the cloud.

The team then concentrated on the features that individuals appreciated the most, such as video and messaging, which distant residents use more frequently than their city counterparts. Engineers had to walk a tightrope in both cases. While the team intended to keep Instagram's design's beauty and artistry, they also had to consider how the app would run in a location with poor connectivity and slower networks. "For anyone with continuous network problems, instant feedback is critical," Lourie explains. "It's difficult to tell if something went wrong or if the feature is simply not working if you have to wait for some animation to upload."


People in more than 170 countries will be able to download Instagram Lite from the Google Play Store starting today to enjoy a high-quality Instagram experience regardless of their network or device. The app will soon be available worldwide.