Telegram rolls out its a major update ahead of Christmas: Here’s what’s new

Christmas is right around the corner. Ahead of the festive season (and the year-end), Telegram has rolled out one last update to its platform. This update brings an important feature called Voice Chats to its Android and iOS-based apps.

Voice chats on Telegram run parallel to text chats in a group and they enable people in a group to communicate actively and more seamlessly by adding a live layer of ephemeral talk to the group. Telegram says that groups with active voice chats have a special bar at the top that shows who is talking at the moment and even how loud they are.

After joining a voice chat, users are free to move around the app, browse conversations and send messages. The company says once users have joined a voice chat, they stay connected to the chat and the microphone controls remain on screen so that you can quickly mute and unmute yourself at any time. On Android, users can use this feature with a system-wide floating widget that shows users’ mic controls and who is currently talking, even when Telegram is in the background.

Telegram says that voice chats can accommodate a few thousand participants, which means that you can talk to your entire office team or family using this feature.

In addition to voice chats, Telegram has also rolled out push-to-talk shortcuts on Telegram Desktop and in the native macOS app. Telegram says that you can choose a push-to-talk key for Voice Chats to control mic even when Telegram is in the background.

Another feature that is coming to Telegram is called Sticker Outlines. Telegram says that animated stickers on Telegram are optimised to deliver smooth 180 frame animations with infinite resolution in less than 50 KB. With today's update, stickers will load even faster than before – and show a shimmering outline of what you're about to see.

In addition to that, Telegram has rolled out a feature that enables iOS users to ask Siri to read incoming messages aloud in their headphones. To do so, here are the steps that users need to follow: Open iOS Settings > Notifications > Announce Messages and set Telegram to ON.

But the story doesn’t end there as the company has released more features for its Android users as well. Telegram has rolled out an update that enables them to move their Telegram app data from internal storage to their SD card, which in turn helps in saving the precious in-built storage space. Additionally, the company has also added new animations on Android, including tapping on the New Message button, opening profiles, managing chat folders and even the message counters.

In addition to that, Telegram has rolled out a feature on its Android app that enables users to quickly edit a photo which they've already sent to add effects, drawings or stickers using its media editor. iOS users, on the other hand, can tap the pen button to quickly edit and send back a photo they have received.

Lastly, the company has rolled out another feature on both its Android and iOS apps that will show a counter of the remaining characters that they are left with when editing a message or a caption.