In this world of apps, a big chunk of them need some sort of Internet connection to work and that is why over time, the demand for data has been rising since. Apps like social networks need an Internet connection to run smoothly since you may have to see notifications or view posts in real time.
However, this only applies in a scenario where people either have huge data bundle balances or have Wi-Fi in their homes. This does not apply to everyone and there are users out there with minimal data bundle balances and would still love to use the service.
A way of making sure people use an app without necessarily having to switch on Internet access is using most of the features while offline. That is what Instagram during their announcement yesterday during the F8 conference. Instagram announced that it has built support for most of its features without Internet access and this is shown on the Android app since it is the most prefered in the developing world.
According to a report by TechCrunch, Instagram’s engineer, Hendri said that offline users will be able to see content that was previously loaded in the feed. You will be able to leave comments, like posts, unfollow people or save media which will go through once you reconnect. You’ll also be able to see profiles you’ve visited before, the old version of Explore tab or your own profile.
This is actually good news. Instagram is one of those apps that is known for being a data hog and since we don’t have an ‘Instagram lite’, this will help in reducing the amount of data you use on the app.
Although this is coming to the Android app first, Instagram said that they were exploring an iOS version. We also hope that they add that functionality to their Stories feature, which by the way surpassed Snapchat in terms of the number of monthly active users.
