Telegram Gains Group Video Calling and Screen Sharing Support

[moritzz]

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.

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

Hi guys

Thanks for the post.

Could you please take "encrypted" out of the sentence "The encrypted chat app has also received improved noise suppression [...]". It's misleading potential customers; Telegram *can* encrypt messages, but *it actually doesn't encrypt anything* if users don't follow a quite dark pattern to encrypt their messages.

Moreover there is no single word about encryption of audio and video content, so users better assume there's no encryption going on there.

Thanks again,
Moritz

 

[macintoshmac]

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.

I have read all about it. I don’t need assistance with understanding it.

The idea of impossibility is absurd. The way around has just not been found yet, is what it is. Those who are happy with thinking it is impossible and sitting, well, good for them. That isn’t how innovation is achieved. I'd like to think that we just have not found a way to work around that limitation while maintaining all benefits.

Furthermore, I never said make Secret Chat default. I am not going to type and explain again what I said.

 

[MacBH928]

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.

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.

This is the thing, if there is 1 main feature you want in an IM its the privacy feature... everything else is bells and whistles. They are also not FOSS which is another thing that makes you have trust issues. Even more, this service has been around near a decade now and makes no money so who is spending his own pocket money for all these people to chat and why?

I think Telegram will never have encrypted chats since they had a lot of time to do so, in reality Whatsapp is more secure since I think it has E2E for messages. Now you have to choose, privacy of your daily conversation or have them stored in a cloud somewhere for convenience of use. Most people do not care about privacy because they have not seen the effect yet, I am sure the moment release any one's chat history to public they will lose their sanity in anger and embarrassment.

I am not programmer, but I do not understand why they can't have your messages sync to your account and that account is always encrypted with your password. No password = no access . Thats how ProtonMail works and encrypted drives.

 

[MacBH928]

Hi guys

Thanks for the post.

Could you please take "encrypted" out of the sentence "The encrypted chat app has also received improved noise suppression [...]". It's misleading potential customers; Telegram *can* encrypt messages, but *it actually doesn't encrypt anything* if users don't follow a quite dark pattern to encrypt their messages.

Moreover there is no single word about encryption of audio and video content, so users better assume there's no encryption going on there.

Thanks again,
Moritz

Given how little you posted here in 12 years, I really appreciate this post.

I have read all about it. I don’t need assistance with understanding it.

The idea of impossibility is absurd. The way around has just not been found yet, is what it is. Those who are happy with thinking it is impossible and sitting, well, good for them. That isn’t how innovation is achieved. I'd like to think that we just have not found a way to work around that limitation while maintaining all benefits.

Furthermore, I never said make Secret Chat default. I am not going to type and explain again what I said.

agreed. I am one of those people who would always say "No thats impossible, can't happen" but those who decide "no I can make it happen" actually made it work. Here we are, flying ships, machine that calculates on its own, I can talk to people instantly on another continent, moving pictures with sound, shooting lasers in your eyes that fixes your sight... a lot of magic has happened.

Heck, in 1997 you had like to pay thousands of dollars to have a video conversation with something called microwave now its a free feature on a free app that is in a cheap phone that is in the hands of everyone on earth. The camera is bundled with the phone. A video camera in like 1995 had like a $500-1000 on its own and was the size of a large brick.

On the other side of the argument, they still didn't find a solution for the common cold.