What to expect from Telegram's Premium subscription service

Telegram's Premium subscription service is launching, offering users extra features they can enjoy on the messaging app. Some of its biggest draws include faster downloads and double the maximum file upload size to 4GB (instead of 2GB). The company hasn't mentioned pricing yet on the blog post detailing the features, but sites like The Verge reported US$4.99 (~CA$6.50) and TechCrunch says between $5 (~CA$6.50) and $6 (~CA$8).

Premium subscribers also get double the limits imposed on non-paying users. You can join up to 1,000 channels instead of 500. You can create 20 chat folders with 200 chats each, save up to 10 stickers, pin up to 10 chats, and add four accounts to Telegram instead of three. You can also have longer bios with a link.

Click to read more ...

WhatsApp starts rolling out emoji reactions, 2GB file transfers, increased group chat capacities

Source: WhatsApp

After testing out the feature last month, WhatsApp has started rolling out emoji reactions to users globally. There are six emoji reactions available: Thumbs Up 👍, Red Heart ❤️, Face with Tears of Joy 😂, Face with Open Mouth 😮, Crying Face 😢, and Folded Hands 🙏. You can also send files up to 2GB instead of the 100MB limitation before. WhatsApp seems to be thinking about video file transfers, saying it "will be helpful for collaboration among small businesses and school groups." Group chat capacity has also doubled up to 512 people if you're interested in that. The features are rolling out over the next week on iOS, Android, macOS, and Windows.

Source

Google Assistant can now read and reply to your messages on third-party apps

Google has always been able to read text messages sent through the native Messages app or Hangouts. But it wasn’t able to read messages from other messaging services wasn’t an option. Until now, that is. According to Android Police, Assistant will now read messages from apps like Slack, WhatsApp, Telegram, GroupMe, Discord, and the like, as well as reply to these messages. To try this out, say “Read my messages” to Assistant. You will need to allow the Google app to access your notifications for this to work.

Once that’s done, a card will pop up with the last text message or messages you’ve received and then it’ll read these out loud. Assistant will say which app it’s from and the name of the sender. You will then be asked if you want to type or dictate a reply. When Assistant has sent your reply, the original message will be marked as read and the notification will go away. However, it won’t read messages containing things like audio notes, pictures, or videos. Assistant will just say things like: “the message just contains an audio attachment.” And then it won’t play this back. You can try this out the next time you get notifications to see if the feature made its way to you.

Source: Android Police

Google Allo will keep your messages on its servers until you delete them

Google is backtracking a bit from what they’ve announced at Google I/O and sharing how they plan to store messages on its new Allo app. If you’re not using Incognito Mode in the app, the messages you send there will be stored “transiently.” What this means is your chat history will remain on your device and Google’s servers until you physically delete them. According to Google, they made the change to improve the smart reply feature of the app. Of course, the messages will remain encrypted. But if you don’t want to have to delete the messages yourself (the one you’re messaging has to delete them, too, to completely remove the data), you can choose to use Incognito Mode within the app.

Source: Engadget + The Verge | Download: Google Play Store + Apple App Store