Telegram has already launched its Premium version, which allows users to have special features in exchange for paying a subscription fee of 4.99 euros per month.
Telegram has indicated that it will not abandon its free app and will continue to release news periodically
However, the company, despite being focused on this project, has indicated that it will not leave aside the free version of the instant messaging app and that it will continue to launch new functions for it as well.
Proof of this commitment are the new functions that it has just launched for the free app, which are already available for the more than 700 million users of the companyand which are the following:
-Join requests for public groups. Join requests can now be enabled for public groups as well, allowing admins to have control over who joins the group. In addition, they can contact the applicants to, for example, explain the rules through a message, or to ensure that they meet the requirements to be part of the group.
To activate requests to join a group, go to «Group info» and press «Edit» and «Group type» and then «Who can send messages» >»select Only members» > «activate».
-Chat verification badges. Relevant personalities and organizations can verify your groups, channels or bots. This way they will have a verification badge that will give users confidence about the source they are consulting. These badges appear in the chat header as well as in profiles, search results, and the chat list.
In order to verify the group, channel or bot, the user or company must have verification in at least two social networks.
-Best bots. Bot developers can now include a photo or video in the What can this bot do? of their bots to publicize their functions.
In addition, the bots integrated in the attachment menu can now also work in groups and channels, in addition to chats between two users.
-Improved chat preview on Android. In this sense, Telegram puts its Android app on par with the iOS app, which already included this improvement. Allows you to scroll through the previews to see the entire chat without it being marked as read.
In addition, new buttons have been added to mark the chat as read, mute, pin or delete it. To have a preview of the chat you must press and hold your profile picture in the list of chats.
-Auto save to gallery on Android. The option to save media to gallery is back and can now be turned on or off separately for chats with users, groups or channels.
-Improvements when sharing to Telegram on iOS. Users can share large media content from other apps directly to Telegram on both iOS and Android, with the ability to send files up to 2GB (or 4GB for Premium subscribers). Doing so displays an animated progress bar to let you know how long it takes to share the file.
-Animated profile photo maker on macOS. Users on macOS now have a quick way to create a custom profile picture by choosing any animated sticker or emoji as the focus and adding a colorful gradient background.
To do this, you have to go to Settings or to the info page. from the chat, click Edit > click the profile picture > select Sticker or emoji.
-Other improvements. In addition, this Telegram update includes more than 100 bug and error fixes, optimizations for mobile and desktop apps… as well as smoother animations for iPhone and iPad users. As for Android users, they will experience improvements in audio and video quality in voice and video messages, new options to use alternative app icons, delete all recent stickers at once and translate user bios or descriptions of chat.
