Google+ and Stadia: Another Google Initiative Falls Short with Android Instant Apps’ Closure
Google is set to discontinue Instant Apps, marking another addition to the Google Graveyard, which catalogues a variety of defunct products, both hardware and software. Notably, services like Stadia and Google+ are also included in this lineup.
Instant Apps, a feature that enabled users to engage with parts of applications without full installation, will officially cease to exist by December 2023. Launched in 2017, Instant Apps offered a promising concept, allowing users to explore apps briefly before deciding to download them entirely.
However, despite its potential, Instant Apps never gained significant traction among users. One of the core challenges was developer participation.
Developers were required to create a streamlined version of their apps, limited to 15 MB, which posed limitations for many. This restriction likely contributed to the feature’s decline.
While Google has acknowledged the termination of Instant Apps, the announcement was subtle and lacked a formal public statement. Instead, a notice in the latest canary build of Android Studio revealed that support for Instant Apps would be removed by December 2023, along with the associated Google Play Instant APIs.
With no major update or blog post from Google, the exact reasoning behind this quiet approach remains unclear. The lack of popularity surrounding Instant Apps suggests that the impending change will go largely unnoticed by the majority of users.
As Google continues to innovate and shift focus, it is evident that Instant Apps did not resonate with the wider developer and user community, ultimately leading to its discontinuation.
