Everything You Need to Know About Instant Apps in Android

There might have been times when you downloaded an app on your Android smartphone only to uninstall it later because the app didn’t turn out the way you expected it to be. Almost everyone smartphone user would have experienced this at least once. Android Instant Apps are the answer to this.

What are Instant Apps in Android?

Instant apps in Google’s Android are similar to Apple’s App Clips in iPhone. They allow users to access (some) content of an app without having to install it on their device. The objective of Instant apps is to help users save space on their devices as well as make them try out a lightweight version of an app before they commit to its full-fledged version. So unlike other times when you had to first install the complete application to access its content, instant apps offer users the opportunity to try an app and decide whether they would want to install its full version based on their experience with the instant app.

How do Instant Apps work?

Although instant apps run like locally installed apps, they are native containers with access to the device’s hardware. Since they do not get installed, they don’t consume storage on the end user’s device.

For Android users to access an instant app, they first must opt-in for instant apps. In order to do so, go to your device’s “Settings”, scroll down to “Google”, click on “Settings for Google apps”, followed by “Google Play Instant” and turn it on.

Instant apps can be found through several ways. For instance, users can perform a Google search for the app. If the app has an instant app version, it will display a “Try it now” button beside the “Install” button on your app details screen. Instant apps can also be found through Google Play Store.

Upon clicking on an Instant app’s URL, the user will be redirected to a specific section of the app. This happens because the app gets split up into modules, and only the code needed to display that module is downloaded. Technically, yes, an instant app does get downloaded onto the device but works much like a mobile browser because the app is cached once it is closed.

Instant apps work only for the apps published on Google Play Store and can be run on Android devices running on Android 5.0 and above

Instant Apps: Who gets benefitted the most?

Instant apps, in particular, are most beneficial for game developers and eCommerce organizations. Game developers can leverage instant apps to allow the end-users to play a certain level of the game in order to grab their attention and interest. If they feel interested in playing that game or want to explore more levels, they can download the complete application.

The same is the case for eCommerce applications. Users can get a basic overview of the application as to what it has to offer, and then install the full-fledged application if they feel so.

Benefits of Instant Apps

Instant apps offer the following advantages-

1. Discoverability

The major advantage of Instant apps is discoverability. It is quite a challenge for app developers to increase the visibility of an application as it gets sunk within the app store. With instant apps, a simple Google search or the website can direct users to an instant app.

2. User Satisfaction

With instant apps, users have the freedom to decide whether they want to install the complete application after exploring a small segment of it. They aren’t compelled to download the full application for using it. This leaves users highly satisfied. The rate of users uninstalling the app after downloading it is also very low. Even if they don’t like the application after downloading its full version of the app, they won’t likely leave a negative review.

Instant Apps: Drawbacks

Instant apps also put forward a few challenges, such as-

1. Security

Instant apps tag some security concerns along with them. Because it consists of app modules or smaller sets of code, it could result in more attack vectors.

2. Limitations with device’s hardware

Instant apps cannot use background services or notifications, neither they can access a device’s external storage or identifiers such as IMEI address.

How to Create an Instant App?

If you are a developer, creating an instant app is quite easy and doesn’t require any additional skills. You can either create it from scratch or transform a full app into an instant app. Both processes can be performed through Android studio.

Developing an instant app can possess a few challenges as well. Building an instant app out of a traditional native app requires developers to modularize the app into separate code components. For developers who practice modularization as a standard development practice, it won’t be much of a challenge, however, it can be a bit difficult and time-consuming for the ones who don’t.

The app modules also need to be 4 MB in total, which often calls for refactoring the app. It can get a little challenging for some developers to meet this size requirement.

Summing Up

Users today would prefer a native app over a website but they don’t want the hassle of installing it. There are tons of apps on the Google Play Store but not all applications are worth installing. Some are just for one-time use which you will seldom use again. This is where Instant apps come extremely useful.

Instant apps prove to be a great option for businesses to market or advertise their mobile app and capture quality downloads.