Facebook Lite, the company’s slimmed down version based on the popular Snaptu app is being deactivated as per MacMagazine.
The publication confirmed that the Facebook Lite app is no longer on the App store unlike Messenger Lite.
Users in Brazil have received messages that Facebook Lite app for iOS will be soon deactivated.
https://twitter.com/DalvaVeronica/status/1293165363841110016?s=20
“Due to the limited adoption and improvements we are making to improve the experience for people in our apps, we will no longer support Facebook Lite for iOS,” a Facebook spokesperson said.
Facebook Lite predicament
Facebook Lite made a lot of sense for the company. They announced it back in 2015 as a stripped down version of the main Facebook app. It uses less data and works well across all network conditions. Facebook Lite was based on the popular Snaptu app which they bought in 2011 for $70 million.
Facebook understood that in many areas, networks can be slow and not be able to support all the functionality found on the regular app. The app was also small to target people with phones with tiny internal storage capacities.
The company started with Facebook Lite for Android in 2015 but later on rolled out its sibling for iOS in 2018. It had the same elements as the Android version where it was tin in size (only 10MB) and was designed to use less mobile data.
The fact that Facebook will no longer support Facebook Lite for iOS due to low adoption in Brazil makes a lot of sense in 2020. iPhones are usually pretty powerful to run the regular Facebook app so it would make sense that people are not opting to use the Lite version.
If this was the case for Android, it would have been more interesting. Unlike in 2015, budget Android phones nowadays have more internal storage, have way more RAM and are more powerful than before.
