Telegram’s latest update adds a slick new Thanos Snap effect

Telegram is among our favorite messaging apps for a good reason. It provides a great chatting experience, with the team behind the service constantly updating the app with new features and changes. In 2023 alone, Telegram rolled out nine significant updates, and right at the end of the year, it rolled out Telegram 10.5 with some major enhancements, including a redesigned voice and video call interface, a new vaporize effect when you delete messages, and more.

While Telegram is primarily a messaging app, you can also video or voice call your friends. Compared to Google Meet or FaceTime, though, Telegram’s video/voice call experience is not that great. This should hopefully change with Telegram 10.5, which is introducing a redesigned call interface with slick new animations and hundreds of underlying bug fixes. Additionally, the call background will now change dynamically based on the call status.

More importantly, the messaging service claims in its announcement the new interface is less resource-intensive, making it work better on older devices and saving battery life. There are also improvements to call quality, with more upgrades to connection and audio quality coming in 2024.

The next time you delete a message, it will disappear with a slick Thanos Snap Effect. In November, the vaporize animation was introduced on Telegram’s iOS app as an experimental feature for auto-delete messages. Now, it is available on Android and iOS whenever you delete a message.

The biggest highlight of Telegram v10.5 is the massive update to the Bot Platform, which the messaging service calls the largest in its history. Bots are getting even more powerful and interactive thanks to Bot API v7.0. They can now react to messages, manage reactions, quotes, links, and more. If you develop bots on Telegram, check out the detailed release notes highlighting all the changes here.

There are seemingly more new features in Telegram’s latest release, but the team is not detailing them yet. It promises to reveal them in January 2024.

Before Telegram v10.5, the messaging service’s last major update arrived at the end of November. It made it easier to find the channels you love, the ability to repost stories, share video messages in stories, and more. It also made voice-to-text available to all free users of the platform — it was previously limited to Telegram Premium members.

WhatsApp remains the most popular messaging app, with Meta rolling out regular updates to improve the service. Despite the stiff competition, Telegram has stayed relevant with its more advanced feature set, which appeals to power users. If you have just started using Telegram, check out the top tips for using it safely and securely.