Telegram Launches Many New Features at Once, Was Too Late Because of Apple!

JAKARTA - Telegram again brings several new features for Premium users and some visual changes that are available for all users. The most notable change is the addition of voice-to-text for video messages.

Since the launch of Telegram Premium, subscribers have been able to convert any voice message into text when reading is more comfortable than listening. This update adds the same functionality for video messages, allowing Premium users to get text transcripts instantly. The video message transcription can be accessed by tapping the “→A” button at the bottom right of the video.

In addition, the Topics in Groups feature is also available for non-Premium users. It allows groups of more than 200 members to create separate rooms and notifications that act like individual chats.

There are also 12 new emoji packs for Premium users that you can use in any message and caption, or set it up as a Halloween status.

Next up are Collectible Usernames, NFT-like assets that are secured by the TON blockchain network and can be bought and sold via Fragments. Telegram says these names can be less than five characters long and work like regular usernames, which will appear in Global Search results and generate username.t.me and t.me/username links that can be used outside of Telegram.

Night mode has also been updated for iOS users, making colors more balanced and even with a better blur effect when scrolling through chats and chat lists.

For Android users, they will get a new option to change the text size including link preview and reply header via Chat settings.

Citing The Verge, Tuesday, November 8, several minor design improvements have also been added, such as a placeholder chat bubble that pulsates when a message loads and a new animation for swiping left to reply.

Lastly, Telegram apologizes to all its users for the delay in rolling out new features and other updates. The company blamed Apple for this for taking two weeks to review everything.