Telegram Just Made a Big Move—Here Are The 12 Things You Need to Know

Telegram has released it’s largest update in history - Mini apps 2.0.

TG was already absolutely killing it this years, with hundreds of millions of users spending hours every day on Miniapps like Blum, Notcoin (800M MC), Hamster Kombat (300M MC), etc.

Just in 2024, the price of TON (Telegram’s native token) has grown over 100%.

Even I have noticed a crazy shift in demand, at the beginning of 2024 our dev agency would get maybe one Telegram mini app request a month, now we get one a WEEK!

And all of this has been happening with very limited features on Telegram, but now, the floodgates are open, you can build anything.

This reminds me of the time Apple released the App Store on iPhone, you could feel the potential.

Here are some of the crazy new features Telegram has released:

Full-Screen Mode

Mini apps are now able to use the entire screen in portrait or landscape orientation.

This allows apps to host games and apps that need a wider screen, and are more interactive.

Device Motion Tracking

Mini apps are able to receive information about the motion of your device to add unique controls to games or build immersive VR experiences.

You can even lock the screen orientation to ensure there is no unnecessary rotation if your app uses device motion for controls.

Home Screen Shortcuts

You can now place direct shortcuts to specific mini apps on the home screen of your device!!!

This is huge, just think of the mental real estate you can take by having your Mini app on a user’s phone home screen.

To incentivize this you could even create a task where they are rewarded with points if they add the mini app to the homescreen.

Geolocation Access

Users can now share your location with mini apps — which gives you the ability to make location-based games with points of interest or interactive maps for events.

Imagine the amount of data you can retrieve by knowing where in the world your users are and where they move around to. Extremely valuable.

Gifts from Apps

Mini apps can now use their stars to send users gifts as rewards to celebrate achievements.

You can now incentivize users to achieve a certain level or complete a certain task as they will directly be rewarded with stars.

Emoji Statuses from Apps

Telegram Premium users can set emoji statuses from inside mini apps, showing others that they're in a game.

Mini apps can integrate APIs from other services — instantly updating a user's emoji status when they start playing music, open a book or turn on a movie.

Apps with location permissions could also be used to update your status when you're at work or out of the office.

Your mini app can also have it’s own custom emoji packs to offer as status options, adding to the viral potential.

Just think of how crucial status sharing was to the growth of Facebook back in the day, everybody wants to share what they are doing with their friends.

Media Sharing

Users can now share media directly from mini apps — sending referral codes, custom memes and more to any chat.

Mini apps can now also create media for users to post on their stories.

This is going to create a huge network effect as users share with their friends, their friends in turn share with other friends, and so on and so forth.

Creating Documents

Mini apps can also generate documents and files which you can download — such as AI-generated profile pictures or audio files.

Subscription Plans

You are now able to offer subscriptions to users with Telegram Stars.

Allow users to make a recurring purchase within your mini app, monetizing your product or service.

Loading Screen Customization

You can customize the loading screen of their mini app in @BotFather — adding your own icon and specific colors that will be displayed before the app starts loading.

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That’s it. I’m convinced this new update is going to spark the creation of the next five , $100M projects on Telegram. Question is, will it be your project?

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Note: We work with a LOT of Telegram mini apps so are always up to date with everything that is going on. If you need any further insights or help with design & development, book a call!

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