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Telegram Gains Group Video Calling and Screen Sharing Support

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Telegram Messenger gained some notable new features over the weekend, including the ability to turn group voice chats into video calls, support for screen sharing, and more.

telegram-video.jpg

First up, Telegram is touting the new group video calling feature as bringing "voice chats to a whole new level, ready for online classes, business meetings, and family gatherings."

To turn a group voice chat into a group video call, users can tap the camera icon at the bottom of the screen. Tapping a participant's video makes it go fullscreen, and a pin icon in the top-right corner of the screen lets you pin the video, which makes it stay focused as new users join the call.

Telegram notes that while audio-only participants are unlimited, video is currently available for the first 30 people who join the voice chat. However, this limit will increase soon "as voice chats take on streaming games, live events and more." Screen sharing during a video chat is also straightforward, and appears as an option in the three-dot icon menu.

The encrypted chat app has also received improved noise suppression in voice chats, and the addition of a new toggle to turn noise suppression off in settings if it's affecting your use case.

To make better use of the additional screen space of tablets and computers, there are more display options on these devices. Users can tap to open the side panel and see a split-screen view of the video grid and list of participants, optimized for both portrait and landscape orientation.

Meanwhile, voice chats on desktop open in a separate window, so users can type and talk without minimizing anything. Desktop apps also now have selective screen sharing, so it's possible to broadcast an individual window instead of the whole screen.

In addition to group video calls and screen sharing, this update also adds animated backgrounds, message sending animations, a new menu button for bots, new ways to import stickers, reminders to help keep your account safe, and more. For all the details, check out the Telegram blog.

Telegram is a free download for iPhone and iPad from the App Store. [Direct Link]

Article Link: Telegram Gains Group Video Calling and Screen Sharing Support
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2021/06/28/telegram-gains-group-video-calling/
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Reactions: nouvejetzt
Good to hear that. But if all the people is using iPhone or iPad, FaceTime would still be my first choice. What do you think, guys?
 
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Reactions: BeefCake 15
I think it is nice! I use Telegram to keep in contact with study groups and this is appreciated.
 
FaceTime is too behind the industry. Apple had a massive lead during 2010s when it first came out.
But:
1) FaceTime needed group video calls by 2012, instead of in 2018.
2) FaceTime really needed a cross-platform app in 2020 and it could have become the industry leader.
3) FaceTime didn't have a call-scheduling/calendar feature in 2020 when it really needed it.

Imagine your doctor using a Mac to schedule secure/private/confidential FaceTime calls with you in 2020 (irrespective of whether you had an iDevice or not). Apple really missed the mark and that ship has now sailed. Too little too late.
Microsoft Teams and Zoom have completely taken over the market.
 
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Telegram really is the best. Its search is BY FAR the best, you can find years-old messages in a second (no, I'm not exaggerating), and it's the most robust chat app I've ever seen. Last year I had continuous issues with my ISP, and there were hours when literally Telegram was the one and only Internet app that worked for me. I don't know how they do it, but it's just friggin' robust. It also uses the least amount of data, so you can use it even on the slowest airplane plan lol. It's a uniqie specimen for sure.
 
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I@beck said:
Good to hear that. But if all the people is using iPhone or iPad, FaceTime would still be my first choice. What do you think, guys?
Click to expand...
If everybody in the group is in the same Telegram chat, opening FaceTime instead and adding everybody is multiple additional steps. I like FaceTime obviously, but I'll likely use Telegram for group calls a lot more than FaceTime now.
 
I can do so much with Telegram, even have a Bot setup so when I publish a new WordPress page it notifies my channel automatically. So flexible and feature rich.

I use it as a file store and for 99% of my digital communications with friends and family. Cross platforms, nothing comes close to the functionality for me. This was the last item missing.

Have been able to finally delete WhatsApp as everyone I know is now also on Telegram. Thanks, Facebook.
 
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Shadows_lord said:
Telegram is by far the most feature-rich messaging app. Nothing beats it or comes even close.
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The most feature-rich and, imho, the best-looking, with the most frequent updates + it already supports M1 macs. I use Signal for family and I like that too, but its desktop app is embarrassingly slow.
 
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While this is great, we have so many of these things now. Imagine if the phone system was like this - i.e. you could only call other people who used the same phone company as you did?

I'm stuck using a weird mix of FaceTime, WhatsApp and FB Messenger. I don't want the last two apps on my phone, but too many family members in other countries use them, and I could NEVER get them all to switch to something like this.

Also - how are they making money? This service costs money to run and since the App is free, there must be some way for them to monetize. What's their game?
 
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I@beck said:
Good to hear that. But if all the people is using iPhone or iPad, FaceTime would still be my first choice. What do you think, guys?
Click to expand...
I have many friends who are iPhone users, but we never used iMessage or FaceTime to communicate as literally nobody uses them here.
 
Telegram is the best, been using it for years.
Its a shame that Apple just sat on FaceTime for so long. I know most people here with iPhones that don't even use FaceTime Audio.
 
For multi device syncing, Telegram beats iMessage hands down. The fact that I can go from phone to Mac and my iMessage is NOT synced is a massive disappointment.

Also, the Telegram share sheet is 95% better than the iMessage share sheet. I should not have to TYPE in the name / phone / email to share something to someone I have shared to before or have an open conversation with. And sharing to a group... No thank you.
 
Telegram is the most feature rich messaging app its near a social network, but its not the most private. Signal is where it is if you want secure+privacy messaging.

I heard Telegram will soon be rolling ads to support the "free" app.
 
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MacBH928 said:
Telegram is the most feature rich messaging app its near a social network, but its not the most private. Signal is where it is if you want secure+privacy messaging.

I heard Telegram will soon be rolling ads to support the "free" app.
Click to expand...
I read differently. Maybe that will change. I thought never any ads but potentially a business tier or paid feature tier.
 
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I have been using Telegram since 2014 and I have had the pleasure to see the app grow leaps and bounds.

For a chat application where emphasis is on communication and emotions, this app delivers. Everything feels more geared towards the user, there are passionately designed stickers and animated stickers, the chat view of the app is fairly customisable, the settings panel is a bucketload of options for nearly everything that you want to do and cannot with the likes of WhatsApp.

If Telegram is able to bring end-to-end encryption in its regular chats like its own Secret Chat feature, the only peeve that some might have against it would be gone.
 
MacBH928 said:
Telegram is the most feature rich messaging app its near a social network, but its not the most private. Signal is where it is if you want secure+privacy messaging.

I heard Telegram will soon be rolling ads to support the "free" app.
Click to expand...
Only the public channels will have ads.
 
macintoshmac said:
If Telegram is able to bring end-to-end encryption in its regular chats like its own Secret Chat feature, the only peeve that some might have against it would be gone.
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It has been explained before why it’s impossible to do.

One of the key features Telegram has is multiple device support, with all messages synced across. Your messages are in the secure cloud. You can buy a new device, log in, boom. You’re up to speed with everything.

You can log in to Telegram Web without your phone having internet and seeing all your messages.

This cannot work with E2E encryption. If you noticed, any secret chats are not synced across all devices. Making this default will kill the sync messages feature.

If you care so much about privacy over multiple device support, start secret chats. An average user would not care about E2E encryption.
 
CalMin said:
While this is great, we have so many of these things now. Imagine if the phone system was like this - i.e. you could only call other people who used the same phone company as you did?

I'm stuck using a weird mix of FaceTime, WhatsApp and FB Messenger. I don't want the last two apps on my phone, but too many family members in other countries use them, and I could NEVER get them all to switch to something like this.

Also - how are they making money? This service costs money to run and since the App is free, there must be some way for them to monetize. What's their game?
Click to expand...

My first thought too. There’s a lotttttt of options.

I FaceTime it also because those I do it with have IPhones. It’s convenience not necessarily what’s the best App. I am looking forward to trying FaceTime in iOS 15. Apple touted FaceTime’s upgrade. We’ll see how that translates to using it.

All users be aware that anytime it’s free may mean you are the product. And what they may want from their product is as much information as possible.
 
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