Telegram has updated with voice-to-text for video messages, multiple collectable usernames, and more

Telegram's latest update has added some heavily requested features to the encryption supporting messaging service. These include an improved night mode in iOS, instant text transcription for video messages with Telegram Premium, and more.

The official blog post coinciding with the update summarizes all of these new features and tweaks to the user interface point by point. Some of the highlights include:

Topics in Groups: groups with over 200 members can now enable topics and create separate spaces for any subject Collectible Usernames: In addition to one basic username, you can now assign multiple collectible usernames to each of your accounts and public chats. Voice-to-Text for Video Messages: Exclusive to paid Telegram Premium members, instant text transcripts for video messages are now available New Emoji Packs and interactive emoji: Telegram artists have completed 12 new emoji packs. 4 new interactive emoji 😴👨‍💻🤓👀 have been added that play full-screen effects in 1-on-1 chats and can also be used as reactions. Night Mode for iOS improvements: Colors on devices running Apple's mobile OS in dark mode are now more balanced with redone blurring effects for more pleasant scrolling Resizing Text on Android: Changing your text size in Chat Settings on Android now increases the size of all chat text – including link previews, reply headers and more. Minor Design Improvements: A new animation has been added when you swipe left to reply, call options are now available in a new menu, and pulsing placeholders will show while messages are loading.

The update was supposed to release by Halloween, but, according to the Telegram team, was unable to due to Apple taking two weeks to review it before it could be deployed. That said, it is available now across all of Telegram's supported platforms.

Further coverage: Telegram blog The Verge gHacks Tech News