Twitter has just announced Twitter Lite, a new mobile web experience that minimizes data usage while loading information quickly on slow connections. The new Twitter Lite is aimed at emerging markets where internet speeds aren't always ideal.
Twitter Lite is not an app, unlike other solutions offered by social networks like Facebook or streaming video services like YouTube. Twitter Lite is not available on the Play Store, users can access this web experience from any smartphone or tablet simply by typing in mobile.twitter.com in the pre-installed browser.
This provides more benefits to users, as Twitter Lite takes up less than 1MB on the device and can be accessed by users in a number of countries. Twitter has optimized the speed of the app and made it up to 30% faster than Twitter. The UI is almost identical to the main Twitter app, while all the basic features are there, including sections with tweets, direct messages, trends, profiles, media additions, and notifications.
Additionally, Twitter is adding a data saver feature that reduces the amount of mobile data used, while also providing the ability to preview images and videos before they fully load. Twitter says data usage has been reduced by up to 70%, making Twitter Lite suitable for use on unreliable mobile networks.
Twitter is adding push notifications to the Twitter Lite experience on Google Chrome and other browsers for Android. Offline support is also included for situations where users may be on the road and temporarily lose their internet connection.
