Telegram’s latest beta now supports AirPods’ Announce Messages with Siri feature, letting users listen and reply to incoming messages without having to access an iPhone or iPad.
Those on the latest Telegram beta via Testflight will see an option to enable the feature Telegram in Settings - Notifications - Announce Messages With Siri. It’s worth noting that only Apple’s AirPods, AirPods Pro, Powerbeats, Powerbeats Pro, and Beats Solo Pro support this feature. Moreover, only iPhones and iPads running on iOS 13.2 and later are supported.
The Announce Messages with Siri feature uses Siri to announce incoming messages out loud when a user’s headphones are connected to their iPhone or iPad, they are wearing them, and their device is locked, according to Apple. Upon the arrival of an incoming message, Siri plays a tone, announces a sender’s name, and then reads the message.
Users can also reply to the message after Siri is done reading it out loud without having to touch their iPhones or iPads. It’s a handy feature when on a commute, while cooking, or at times when your hands are busy.
Up until now, only Apple’s own apps like Messages and the Home app supported this feature. Apple even offered its Siri API to developers for implementing the Announce Messages with Siri feature. But no apps had implemented it so far until Telegram did recently. Although it isn’t available for everyone as of now, we can expect it to arrive sometime soon as an official update via the App Store.
Telegram is a popular instant messaging app competing head-on with Facebook-owned WhatsApp. Although it has a better feature set—now including upcoming support for announcing messages with Siri— Telegram is often overshadowed by the latter’s massive active user base.
WhatsApp stood at around 2 Billion monthly active users in March 2020, according to Statista; while Telegram reported a monthly active user base of 400 Million in April 2020, according to TechCrunch.
If you use Telegram on a daily basis, the addition of Siri’s announce messages feature might be something you’d like to check out.
