Telegram is one of the best messaging platforms out there and it has a lot of features. The messaging platform has skyrocketed since WhatsApp announced its controversial privacy policy, adding a number of quality of life features and updates over time to improve service and better compete with other top messaging apps. The latest Telegram Beta 8.4 adds spoilers and emoji message reactions to Android users.
Android Police spotted the new features, and it’s important to note that the spoiler and message responses have been around for some time in the iOS beta but weren’t available to Android users. Fortunately, it seems Telegram finally managed to get it working properly on Android and it will be available soon through the Telegram beta program.
Source: Android Police
Message responses work as expected. You can long press any message and the thumbs up, thumbs down, heart, fire, party popper, and shock emojis will appear. You can also swipe to view and select additional emojis. There will be 11 emojis in total and it is unclear if the user can customize the selection with their own emojis. These can be used for any message, even your own.
Spoilers work similarly, and you can long press your text as you write and highlight the text you want to mark as a spoiler. You can then select the spoiler button to make the selection and broadcast. The new spoiler option hides the selected text. The hidden text can be shown by tapping on the text.
If you want to try out the new Telegram Beta, the thing to note is that you won’t find it on the Google Play Store. Instead, you have to download from the company’s dedicated website that uses the Microsft App Center to distribute and publish different versions of the official Telegram client. If you choose to download it, your existing Telegram app will remain intact (stable) and you will have another Telegram beta installed as a separate application.
