Data-light apps: The Need of the Hour

Today, almost all parts of the world have smartphone users, and these people have access to app stores. However, the same thing cannot be said about internet availability. As in, some parts of the world lack good internet availability- a must for apps that require a high-bandwidth connection.

For the uninitiated, most of the nations in Africa have faced several internet shutdowns in the fast 5 years. In fact, it has been found that only 24% of people in Africa use the internet. Not just that. About 1.6 billion people live in places where a 3G and 4G network isn’t available at all. They may have to hunt down a wifi location in some corner of the world or even get into the app store, for that matter.

Step in Data-light apps!

Low Internet Connectivity? No Problem! Use Data-light apps

Think Facebook Lite, Instagram Lite, Skype Lite, and Twitter Lite and, Google’s stripped-down versions of Google Maps and YouTube.

Apparently, app development companies started focusing on “lite” apps after Facebook Lite’s launch in 2015. Despite being just a 10 MB app, the Facebook Lite doesn’t compromise any mainstream features of a full Facebook app, which reportedly consumes 500MB in storage.

Benefits of Data-light apps:

Data-light apps offer a fantastic experience not just in developing markets, even in developed markets as well. Since the app uses less data, it will work at lightning speed with a good internet connection. Even in the developed world, internet connection faces disruptions. So such apps won’t lock out the users when their internet connection gets disrupted.

Let’s look at few tips to create apps that work without internet or even at low-speed internet connectivity.

So, it goes without saying that it’s a challenge for app developers to create apps for markets with low internet connectivity. They have to work a way to make their apps data-light so as to make it worthy enough for the users with low internet speeds.

Working on a new app

If you are working on a new app right now, you should actively factor in data size while building it. You should ask questions like; do we really need to add that 12MB splash screen video into the app makes?

In short: Exclude the unnecessary features. For instance, instead of adding a video to the app, you can make the video available on-demand if you find the user has a fast internet connection. For users with slow internet connectivity, video won’t matter much as the app’s core functionalities.

Working on an existing app:

Try these two things:

Create a light version of your original app

If anything, this approach isn’t economical for your business, for you need to invest somewhat to get a light version of your alternative app.

Optimize the original app

As compared to the above, this is a cost-effective method to follow: that is optimizing your existing app as soon as possible. And experts consider it to be a more feasible option as there’s no costly overhead involved.

Whether you are building a light version of the app or optimizing the original version, the process remains the same. You need to opt for a lower resolution image or get rid of the big feature, which could be an animation or a large image that’s consuming so much space.

Specific tools to develop data-light apps

Analyzer tools: Analyzer tools such as lint help you analyze your project and detect unused code and resources. This step will help you to reduce the data usage of your app automatically.
Image compressing tools: There are umpteen image compressing tools on the internet, for instance, Tiny PNG, which you could use to compress your images.
Tool to optimize or minify codebase: A tool like Proguard is good at this.

That said, building a data-light app is not just about pre-installation; you need to think about the post-installation experience too. Ignoring either of these installations could cause issues, as your app could go data-hungry.

Nevertheless, data-light apps have limitations. Such apps don’t come with all the features of a regular app. You can find a way out by reusing a small set of animations or providing user functionality that allows loading an image in full resolution. Interested in developing a data-light app? Browse GoodFirms list top mobile app development companies with a reputation of creating quality data-light as well.

Author bio: Jennifer Warren is a blogger and content manager at GoodFirms- a prominent review and rating platform that provides a level-playing field to businesses of all sizes. She can be found on Twitter @contactjwarren and LinkedIn.