Why I’m so excited about Android Instant Apps

Udoh N. Kelven
Aug 24, 2017 · 3 min read
src: Android Developers’ website.

Once upon a time, I was a huge fan of Android apps. I loved (and still love) how beautiful they look and how they make accessing services very quick and easy — one tap and you’re in (as opposed to typing URLs, irregardless of whether they’re long or not, in the browser all the time). Way back, I had a gang load of apps installed on my phone(s).

Times have changed for me though.

Now, I don’t have the Facebook app installed on my smart phone. Neither do I have Instagram, Uber and all the other popular apps installed. I installed Messenger few days ago only because chat.kudi.ai, which is an amazing tech tool by the way, messed me up at the point of making payment for a purchase — it was a little embarrassing.

I became a browser person (I don’t joke with Google Chrome, Opera, UC Browser and now Firefox Focus) because these apps became a thorn in the flesh and on my phone’s memory. They get bigger with every single update, and even bigger with every use. Facebook app, which as of a day or two ago was 77.53MB in size on Google Play Store, could grow as big as 300MB with usage. Same goes for Messenger, Instagram, and other social networking apps. In no time, 16GB internal memory wasn’t enough to house all my files, and I don’t use memory cards anymore because “three times bitten forever shy”.

A friend once told me of how he helped a female friend clear the cache of some apps (Facebook, the usual suspect, was among) on her phone because memory space had become thin. Same friend told me of a lady whose WhatsApp cache was more than a GB, causing her phone to not work effectively. In the past, I’ve had to choose between which apps to keep because of memory space. This has been a problem for a lot of people for a while now.

Google has luckily come up with a solution (because they know it’s a problem too) — Android Instant Apps (AIA).

AIA has been described as an “evolution in app sharing and discovery” as it allow users run any app, with just a tap, without installing it on their smart phones. The apps will still spot the same features as the native apps — essentially, users still have the same experience across board.

This is huge for me as it is for other users who have had a fair share of how native apps can mess with their smart phone storage. Same goes for Google, who has dedicated so much time to come up with a fix, and for the entire Android Community. Instant Apps will ensure users only have important apps installed on their phones — the others will be “summoned from the cloud” or wherever it is they’ll be.

A few companies have already had a feel of the superpowers of AIA and the testimonies have been nothing short of incredible. Vimeo’s Instant App, which was launched in May 2017, saw sessions duration increase by over 130%. NYTimes Crossword, Jet and Dotloop also shared their Android Instant Apps stories.

The coolest thing yet about Android Instant Apps is that developers don’t have to bring an ant’s kidney or look for a grain of rice in a haystack to develop Instant Apps. All they need do is upgrade their existing Android App (yes, they’re not building shit from scratch) by downloading Android Studio v3.0 and installing the Instant Apps Development SDK, and maybe just write a few lines of code, and they’re good.

Android Instant Apps and native apps would co-exist without ish but I don’t think it will be so forever. AIA will become a thing soon because who doesn’t want to free up space on their smart phones so they could have peace of mind and do other important things?

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