Tengrinews.kz – Telegram has released a major update with dozens of new features. The main new addition is support for all smartwatches, along with expanded capabilities for bots, groups and the built-in browser.
Smartwatches
According to the company’s blog, Telegram now has a full-fledged app for Apple Watch and Wear OS watches.
Users can now read conversations of any length directly from their wrist, view photos and videos, listen to voice messages, open location tags, and reply with text, voice messages or stickers.
There are also unique features for different platforms. On Android watches, users can now pin chats and mute notifications, while on Apple Watch they can fully view locations and send stickers.
What bots can now do
According to the developers, bots have become much smarter. They can now format messages as full-fledged articles:
- add tables, nested blockquotes, checklists, images and headings;
- add collapsible sections, footnotes and even mathematical formulas.
To make all this fit, the maximum message length for bots has been increased to 32,768 characters.
In addition, AI bots can now be appointed as administrators in groups. They can automatically verify users before they join a chat, for example by asking questions through mini apps, and can even moderate messages.
What else was added
The company also announced several other major changes to the app:
- polls now allow links to be embedded directly into answer options;
- Telegram’s built-in browser can now open .md files without any problems and correctly display Markdown formatting, so third-party apps are no longer needed;
- users can choose where links open — in Telegram’s built-in browser or in an external one such as Safari or Chrome. If desired, they can easily set up a whitelist of websites that will always open inside the messenger or, conversely, only in a third-party browser;
- the Android version of the app has updated header bars, allowing many more chats to fit on the screen.
Incidentally, the popular messenger WhatsApp recently released a major update for iOS users that solves one of the main problems for iPhone owners. Users can now officially use two different accounts in one app on the same smartphone.
