News

Instagram Lite Delivers All Essential Features In Just 2 MB

Published

5 years ago

March 18, 2021

Instagram users in more than 170 countries can now download a lite version of the Instagram app from the Google Play Store. The app, called simply Instagram Lite, delivers all essential features the photo and video sharing social network has to offer while using up only 2 MB of storage space.

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, many Instagram users have lost access to high-speed internet networks, forcing them to rely on slow and often expensive mobile data instead. One of these users was Michelle Lourie, who’s also a product manager at Facebook.

Working in Israel, she and her team in Tel Aviv collaborated with a New York-based team to develop a lighter alternative to the Instagram app, one that would work great even on low-end Android devices without any major compromises.

“No matter where they are, people want to be entertained and inspired by those that they love. It’s difficult to do that on Instagram with an entry-level phone that has storage constraints,” said Lourie in a statement. “We wanted the Instagram experience to remain fast, high-quality, and reliable, irrespective of the device, platform, and network people are on,” added Tzach Hadar, Director of Product Management at Facebook Tel Aviv.

Also Read: Instagram Music Is Finally Available In The Middle East

After a year of development, Instagram Lite was born. The new app requires users to download only 2 MB of data (the full-size version is approximately 30 MB large), but it offers just about all essential features, including photo and video uploads, creative tools, instant messaging, and more.

Facebook

Additional features will be introduced in future updates. For example, the app’s developers are already working on a dark mode option after receiving countless requests from early users. For people who live in communal areas and close quarters, it’s really important to browse more privately and not bother those around them,” explained Lourie.

News

At I/O 2026, Sundar Pichai Concedes AI Must Deliver Real Value

Gemini 3.5, a personal agent called Spark, agentic shopping, and Android XR eyewear are all aimed at making AI feel useful, not just impressive.

Published

5 days ago

May 20, 2026

Nour Nasir

at io 2026 sundar pichai concedes ai must deliver real value

Google

Google’s annual I/O developer conference (I/O 2026) has recently become a status update on the same question: can the company turn its AI spending into products people use every day? This year, chief executive Sundar Pichai described Google as being in a phase of hyper progress, while conceding this is the part of the cycle where people want to see real value in the products they use on a day-to-day basis.

The strategy on display was to push agents — AI systems that act on a user’s behalf — into nearly every Google product at once. Search now has an “intelligent search box” that returns generated explainer videos alongside links. Gmail, Docs, YouTube and Maps are gaining their own agent layers, including a Docs Live feature that turns spoken instructions into drafted text with citations.

Two new models, Gemini 3.5 and a cheaper Gemini 3.5 Flash, arrived the same day. Google says 900 million people now use Gemini, and that more than 50 billion images have been generated with it. The pricing tier names are likely to confuse buyers: a new AI Ultra plan launches at $100 a month, while the older Gemini AI Ultra drops from $250 to $200.

The flashier announcements were Gemini Omni, a video generator pitched as a more realistic answer to OpenAI’s discontinued Sora 2, and Gemini Spark, a personal agent that handles recurring tasks across a user’s Google account. A new universal shopping cart lets agents complete purchases across multiple retailers from inside Google itself, placing the company between the merchant and the buyer, and also owning the checkout.

Also Read: DJI Teases Dual-Camera Osmo Pocket 4P For 2026 Launch

Google also confirmed its Android XR eyewear, built with Samsung and frames from Warby Parker and Gentle Monster. Audio-only glasses ship this autumn; a display-equipped version, which would superimpose live translations into the wearer’s field of view, is still in development. Both sets translate, however only the display version shows you the result.

What Pichai did not resolve is the bargain underneath all this. An agent is only useful to the degree it knows your calendar, your inbox, your shopping history and your physical surroundings. Google has now confirmed that, in time, the same context may carry advertising.