Last year during Google I/O, Google announced an upcoming feature called Instant Apps. Basically what this does is that instead of users having to install an app on their phone just to use certain features or services, Instant Apps will allow users to use the app from the web, or at least a part of it.
However while the feature was launched last year, a report from Android Police has revealed that Google has only just started to test out the feature. As announced on Google’s Android Developers Blog, this is a limited test which is only open to a handful of apps on the web which includes BuzzFeed, Wish, Periscope, and Viki.
According to Google, “We’ve been working with a small number of developers to refine the user and developer experiences. Today, a few of these Instant Apps will be available to Android users for the first time in a limited test, including apps from BuzzFeed, Wish, Periscope, and Viki. By collecting user feedback and iterating on the product, we’ll be able to expand the experience to more apps and more users.”
It is unclear as to how long it will take until we start seeing more Instant Apps make their way online, but either way it’s good to know that Google has finally started to test it out which hopefully means users won’t have to wait too long for developers and webmasters to start taking advantage of it.