Facebook Lite app is no longer available on App Store: Here is why
The Lite version of Facebook was specifically designed for people who didn’t have much storage capacity left in their phones and had poor internet connections.
In Short
- Facebook has removed Facebook Lite from Apple’s App Store.
- As per a report by MacMagazine, Facebook has discontinued the Lite version of the app due to the limited adoption.
- Facebook Lite is still available for Android users.
Facebook has quietly taken down one of its popular apps recently. The social media giant has removed the watered-down version of Facebook known as Facebook Lite from Apple’s App Store. As per a report by MacMagazine, Facebook has discontinued the Lite version of the app due to the limited adoption.
The development was first spotted by Brazilian media outlet MacMagazine. The Lite version of Facebook was specifically designed for people who didn’t have much storage capacity left in their phones and it was also made to work in areas with poor internet connections. The app didn’t display high-resolution images nor did it play heavy videos. It was designed to be used on phones with older versions of Android and iPhone. The app description on App Store read, “Keeping up with friends is faster and easier than ever with the Facebook Lite app. Facebook Lite uses less data, saves space on your phone, and works well across all network conditions, even 2G. And, it's under 12MB to download.”
The changes first came to the fore when Brazilian users with Facebook Lite app were welcomed with an expected message.
The message in Portuguese read, “"Facebook Lite for iOS will be disabled,"You can use the original Facebook app to keep in touch with friends and family.” However, after several users raised complaints, a Facebook spokesperson confirmed that the app has indeed been taken down. "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,” he said in a statement.
Now, the Facebook Lite app has also been removed from the App Store. When we searched the app on the App Store, we couldn’t find the Lite version but only the main Facebook app appeared on the search results. However, it is important to note that the app has only been taken down for iOS users, it is still available on Google’s Play Store so Android users can still use it. The company has not revealed its plan of discontinuing the app for Android users as the app is quite popular among Android users.
Although Facebook had launched the Lite app in 2015, it arrived two years later for iOS users in 2018. The app was rolled out in Turkey initially and then slowly it was released for users across the globe. The Lite app consumed only around 8.7 MB as compared to the 244MB of the main Facebook app. It provided all the features of Facebook albeit with some restrictions like it never auto-played the video more did it ever display high-resolution images to lessen the data consumption.