A instant app (consists of a small software program that allows end-users to test a portion of an Android application. Android application without the need to install it on a device. The instant app allow websites to load native applications from search results. The difference is that these applications are native containers with access to the hardware of the device and, since there is no installation, these applications do not take up storage space.
History
Instant apps was announced by Google at its annual developer conference called Google I/O in May 2016, and it was in its 2017 release that Google enabled this feature for all Android developers. Android 3.0 (released in October 2017) was the first version to have support for developing Instant apps.
Development
Advantages and disadvantages
One of the biggest advantages is that it gives visibility to applications and therefore makes it easier for users to find them, as a search on Google or a company's website can lead the user to try the application. As it is simple to use, this decreases the chances of a negative review.
As a disadvantage, there is a security concern, since being a reduced version of an application, it is prone to attacks. Other limitations are that they cannot usebackground services, notifications, access to the device's external storage or device identifiers such as IMEI or MAC address. In addition, the size is limited to 4 MB for each feature in an application, i.e., it is not possible to expose a feature in its full version. On the other hand, when shared via links there is a vulnerability, as attackers can steal information through search history and cookies.
User perception
Visiting the Instant Apps app site on Google Play, you can see that there is a lot of discontent regarding the apparently unauthorized installation of this app, there is a lot of mistrust regarding the intentions of this technology, even so, most of the reviews rate 5 stars and not surprisingly, the second most voted value is 1 star.
This is not actually an application, but a setting that can be easily enabled and disabled within the settings menu of the Google Play Store application, although there is a note indicating that this does not prevent you from trying to use the instant apps available by clicking on the links provided by Google Play.
iOs
In the case of iOS, this operating system has a similar option called App Clips, as well as Instant Apps, the idea is to run an application without the need to install it on a device. Apple has as a requirement that the application does not exceed 10 MB, this so that its loading and execution are fast.
