Skip to main content

Facebook launches Instant Articles on the iPhone, offering super-fast news to mobile users

Facebook Instant Articles
Image used with permission by copyright holder
Facebook announced earlier this year plans to make news on its mobile app faster, through a new platform called Instant Articles. The system pre-loads most of the article before the user clicks, shaving eight seconds off the average load time.

The firm is officially launching Instant Articles on iPhone today, making the super-fast articles available to everyone using the app. Facebook also announced that The Washington Post, The Onion, The Verge, and a few other publishers have joined Instant Articles.

facebook-instant-articles
Image used with permission by copyright holder

On the News Feed, a lightning bolt will appear on the top right of a supported news article. Inside of the article, auto-play videos, a like button, and Facebook adverts are embedded. The speed is super-fast, similar to the speed on a native video or “show more” post.

Facebook maintains a singular aesthetic for articles. A header image or video, followed by a break filled with the publisher’s name and a like button, then the article headline, followed by the author and date.

To make the system so fast, Facebook uses both of the cores on the A8 and A9 iPhone chip. It is similar to the technology used on Paper — Facebook’s News Feed redesign experiment — which was built by the same team that created Instant Articles.

Android support is planned for sometime later this year. No word on Windows Phone support, and our guess would be after 2015.

Facebook claims that supporting Instant Articles is in a publisher’s best interests, since it provides more views, more shares, and more interaction. It sounds like a win-win, but some publishers are worried that by giving the social network more control, they could fall into a Zynga-situation, where an algorithm change kills most of their traffic.

Plenty of publishers joined Instant Articles before the official launch to test the waters, including The New York Times, Washington Post, and Buzzfeed, so we assume those worries were not enough to prompt their resistance to the new platform.

Facebook is not the only tech company that wants to make articles faster on mobile. Google, Apple, and Twitter have all announced new platforms. Twitter Moments is a new curation service to find the latest news, Apple News is a new RSS-type feed, and Google is working on Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) to make the mobile Web faster.

Each of the new platforms wants to assist publishers in earning more views and revenue, and to create better conversations. The difference is that Facebook and Twitter want the conversations to happen inside their own networks, rather than spread across the Web.

Editors' Recommendations

David Curry
Former Digital Trends Contributor
David has been writing about technology for several years, following the latest trends and covering the largest events. He is…
Does the Google Pixel Watch work with an iPhone?
A person wearing the Google Pixel Watch 2.

Google threw its hat into the smartwatch ring last year when it introduced the Google Pixel Watch, and now it's back for a much-needed encore with the Pixel Watch 2 — an updated version that proves how good an idea it is to wait for the second generation of a new tech product.

The Pixel Watch 2 improves upon its predecessor in nearly every way, with better battery life, a more comfortable design, and far smoother performance. It's enough for Google to make a mark among Wear OS smartwatches and give Samsung’s Galaxy Watch lineup a run for its money in a way that other challengers like the Moto 360 and Oppo Watch never could.

Read more
It looks like the iPhone 16 will get a big design upgrade
Someone holding the Natural Titanium iPhone 15 Pro Max.

Following the release of the iPhone 15 Pro series, several early adopters reported overheating issues. Apple later confirmed that the problem was caused by a software bug in iOS 17, which affected some owners of the phones. The company quickly resolved the issue with the release of iOS 17.0.3 and never acknowledged that hardware played a role in the overheating. Fast-forward to the present, and it now looks like Apple plans to make hardware changes on the iPhone 16 that would make the 2024 handsets less likely to overheat.

According to Apple prototype collector Kosutami, Apple will make two changes to the next round of iPhones. On X, formerly Twitter, they note: "Apple is actively working on graphene thermal system of iPhone 16 Series to solve the heating problem existing before. And the battery of Pro series would change to metal shell, for the same reason."

Read more
How I use my Apple Watch and iPhone to manage my diabetes
iPhone 15 Pro showing One Drop app and kit.

It’s November, which means it’s Diabetes Awareness Month, with World Diabetes Day recently happening on November 14. According to data from the Apple Heart and Movement Study (AHMS) and Apple Women’s Health Study (AWHS), there are about 537 million adults worldwide who are currently living with diabetes, with that number potentially reaching 643 million by 2030. In the U.S. alone, about two out of five people will develop diabetes in their lifetime, and more than one in three adults have elevated glucose levels that put them in the pre-diabetes zone.

I was pre-diabetic since my college years (it runs in both sides of my family), but then my doctor officially diagnosed me with Type 2 diabetes around early 2018. However, I was told that my case was more “mild” than others and that taking some medication — while also cutting out carbs and sweets, plus daily exercise — can help me keep it under control.

Read more