Five years after killing its Wear OS app, Telegram is reviving support for Android smartwatches with its latest update.
Earlier this week, Telegram quietly dropped a new Apple Watch app and, now, Wear OS is getting the same treatment. In its latest update, Telegram says that smartwatch apps have arrived for both Apple Watch and Wear OS.
This brings the messaging app to Pixel Watch and Galaxy Watch for the first time – when Telegram last had a Wear OS app, the Pixel Watch didn’t exist, and Galaxy Watch was still running Tizen.
The new app supports a suite of features including full access to your chats, the abilty to send and listen to voice messages, and more. The Wear OS app supports muting and pinning chats, but currently lacks the ability to view locations or send stickers – those are on the Apple Watch version, and Telegram teases they’ll come to Wear OS next.
Telegram cheekily explains:
Now you can browse chats and media, and read messages of any length without risking to drop your phone. Feel free to listen to voice messages and watch videos if there’s nobody in the next stall. You can also send text messages — or voice messages, if your hands are busy zipping up.
For some reason, our Android developer added muting and pinning chats, as well as deleting messages. Meanwhile, the iOS developer added viewing locations and sending stickers. Why?? We will never know. We’ve convinced them to steal these features from each other in the next update.
The latest Telegram updates also bring major upgrades to bot text formatting, links in poll options, markdown file support, the option to open links in external browsers with a long-press, and the ability to force Telegram to open specific sites in the external browser rather than the built-in one.
More on Wear OS:
- Verizon says these Pixel Watch models are about to get Wear OS 7
- Samsung Galaxy Watch 9 might get another Classic and Pixel Watch raise-to-talk
- Google details Wear OS widgets that replace Tiles, shows off first apps with support
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