Instant Apps Eulogy at droidcon New York 2025

Back in June, Benoît Quenaudon and I gave a talk called “Instant Apps Eulogy” at droidcon New York. Here was the abstract.

Last year we asked ourselves a question. One that most Android engineers avoid whispering aloud: Are Instant Apps still a thing? It turns out that Google officially said no! Instant Apps are fascinating because they offer possibilities outside of what Google originally engineered them for.

Benoît (Cash App) and Cyril (amo), both of us shipped an Instant App this year for different use cases and different implementations. The restrictions required to publish an Instant App encourage dynamic, lean and performant architectures. Savoir-faire which stays relevant even outside the context of Instant Apps.

After hovering briefly over the state of Instant Apps, we’ll share how we built and shipped our projects. From development quirks to publishing oddities, we’ll highlight what worked, what didn’t, and why Instant Apps might have deserved a second look.

We originally proposed a different title: Instant Apps Reborn. Our main motivation was to show how much Android Instant Apps were undervalued and could enable innovative use cases and elevate the user experience. Unfortunately, two weeks before the droidcon event, Google announced that Instant Apps were going to be entirely removed. Yes, not just deprecated or unsupported anymore, but completely removed. As a result, Benoit and I completely revamped our original agenda and decided to focus on the technical challenges (modularization, app size, integration with other platforms, etc.) we faced, rather than on how to create the best possible Instant App.

The video is available on YouTube and the slides on Speakerdeck.

Enjoy!