Telegram's premium tier is finally here, and it's expensive 

Telegram was spotted working on a premium tier multiple times over the last couple of months—it was also preparing to drop its "free forever. No ads. No subscription fees." tagline in preparation for this. On June 10, the messaging service CEO and founder, Pavel Durov, made Telegram Premium official but did not detail its benefits and monthly subscription price. Now, alongside the announcement of crossing 700 million monthly active users, Telegram has launched the premium plan and revealed all the features it packs.

Telegram says the "contributions of premium subscribers will help improve and expand the app for decades to come, while Telegram will remain free, independent and uphold its users-first values, redefining how a tech company should operate." It is not moving any of the free features behind a paywall with this move. Instead, it is enhancing many of them and bundling them into a paid tier. Below is a roundup of all the new Telegram Premium features:

Surprisingly, Telegram's announcement only highlights the features of the premium tier and does not mention anything about its pricing. Depending on your region, the pricing seems to vary between USD5 to USD6. In India, the subscription costs Rs 460/month (~USD6) for iOS users, which is on the higher side. This is a lot more than WhatsApp's old USD1 per month plan before Facebook bought it, but Telegram also offers a lot more features. We've reached out to the company to learn more about pricing details.

Telegram has also announced improvements for those who don't want to pay. If you run a public group on the messaging platform, you can enable join requests so admins can review new members before they join the group. Public figures and organizations can verify their channel, group, or bot and get a verification badge. This will help you quickly confirm that messages are coming from a verified source and are trustworthy.

Android users can enjoy chat previews as seen on the iOS version of the app—you can long press on a chat to preview the message content without having to mark it as read. Additionally, the Save to Gallery option has been reintroduced on the Android app, and it now allows you to specify the settings on a per-chat, channel, and group basis.

For iPhone users, an animated progress bar will show up sharing large files to give a better idea of the overall progress. If you use Telegram on your Mac, you can now create an animated profile picture using the built-in tool. Other enhancements include improved audio and video quality in voice and video messages for Android users, smoother 120fps animations on iPhones and iPads, and plenty of under-the-hood fixes to squash bugs.

All these changes are a part of Telegram v8.8. The update may not show up immediately on the Play Store for you since it is rolling out gradually.

Thanks: Armando

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