Twitter Builds ‘Lite’ Web App That Runs Fast, Minimizes Data Usage
Twitter has unveiled Twitter Lite, a mobile web app that is fast, uses less data, and takes up less storage space than the company’s app, while still supporting push notifications and offline use.
“The web is becoming a platform for lightweight apps that can be accessed on-demand, installed without friction, and incrementally updated,” says Nicolas Gallagher, an engineer who was technical lead for Twitter Lite.
Hundreds of millions of people visit mobile.twitter.com every month, according to Gallagher.
“We want Twitter Lite to be the best way to use Twitter when your connectivity is slow, unreliable, limited, or expensive,” he says.
According to Gallagher, Twitter Lite is as little as 1% the size of its native app.
“In the coming months, we’ll be shipping more improvements to the accessibility, safety, design, functionality, and performance of Twitter Lite,” he added.
