Matti Robinson
19 Oct 2017 17:06
There aren't many more important upgrades coming to Google's app store than what the company calls Android Instant Apps. Unveiled first time more than a year ago and already available for developers for months now, Instant Apps have now been made public.
Google has added a new category to Google Play called 'Apps to Try Now' which includes a total of eight Instant Apps – not eight thousand or eight hundred, eight. While only a very limited amount of apps can, at this point, be tried before downloaded for actual use, one can expect the availability of this feature to be expanded in the future.
You can find a host of other apps featured on the Android Instant Apps developer page. Android 8.0 Oreo brings along a built-in support for Instant Apps.
Currently you can try the following eight apps: Hollar, Onefootball Live Soccer Scores, dotloop, ShareTheMeal, BuzzFeed, NYTimes Crosswords, Red Bull TV, Skyscanner. At this moment all the apps are free to not only try but to download, but one can imagine that in the future Google will also bring paid apps to Instant Apps.
Instant Apps allow you to try the app in question without lengthy install, and perhaps even more importantly uninstall, process. After trying the app the user can move on with their mobile life without worrying about the app using further resources from the device.
Even though the official, public launch of Instant Apps has now happened, they aren't still found on all Android devices. Google will likely roll it out fairly slowly to devices in different markets.