Facebook have been testing a new feature called Instant Videos on a small number of Android users. The new feature gives users the ability to download certain Facebook videos while they’re connected to Wi-Fi so that they can use them later on, when they’re out and about, without incurring any data charges from their carrier.
TheNextWeb’s Matt Navara shared a screenshot of what Instant Videos will look like. They’ll have a lightning symbol that indicates users can save them for later. This feature will work nicely with the new Facebook Watch tab, which began rolling out across the US last week.
Facebook Instant Videos coming soon? ⚡️
h/t Devesh Logendran pic.twitter.com/rNZYkbeL2r
— Matt Navarra ⭐️ (@MattNavarra) September 11, 2017
This is a user friendly feature that Facebook are trying out here and we welcome it. The only problem, however, is that it might come up against another arbitrary limit that is placed upon smartphone users, that of hard drive space on their device. Users with 16GB or 32GB of space might not have space for Facebook videos, especially if they’re using similar features on Spotify and Netflix.
Instant Videos will likely open up Facebook Watch to users across the developing world who don’t have huge data allowances on their cell plans. Facebook will have to look at the storage issue, though, with the ability to save the Instant Videos to SD card storage likely to make the feature a lot more useful than merely caching the videos in the apps data. For now though all we can do is wait and see.