By: Nick Gambino
Telegram is ringing in the new year with an update to their app that not only improves the phone call interface but uses less phone battery.
“In this update, we have totally redesigned calls, adding new animations and beautiful backgrounds that change dynamically based on the call’s status: ringing, active or ended,” a Telegram blog post announcing the update reads.
Despite the fact that things are more dynamic and it looks like there’s a lot more happening on the screen, it draws less battery power because they’re using less resources to bring you the new call interface. This has the added benefit of allowing the Telegram app to work better on older phones.
The update is more than just a cosmetic tune-up. It’s supposed to also improve call quality with more upgrades to audio and connection quality expected in 2024.
Elsewhere in the Telegram update, Android phones now have the Thanos Snap effect when you’re deleting a message. This is an effect that was added to iOS a month ago.
We’re also getting a big upgrade to the resident bot platform. This is where you can integrate other platforms with Telegram, making it a good choice for businesses who want to employ chat bots. They can now automatically react to messages, reply to chats and interact with links. It seems it’s employing AI to pull this off, but there’s no mention of that in the blog post.
Telegram needs to stay on top of these updates and constantly add new features if they want to stand a chance up against Meta-owned WhatsApp. That messaging app boasts over 2 billion monthly active users. That easily makes it one of the, if not the, most popular apps or platforms in the world.
It’s not that Telegram isn’t popular, they have over 800 million users every month, but WhatsApp is clearly the winner here. Telegram has a lot of room to catch up and a big part of that is offering more to users. This update reflects that strategy.
