Telegram has announced that it will migrate iOS users from its messaging application to a rebuilt Swift version from scratch.
He has been running two versions of his application in parallel on iOS and Android during 2018: officially announcing Telegram X in January, when he loaded it as an experiment and said that the alternative application "may or may not replace existing official applications".
Well, maybe now it has become a certainty, at least on iOS. [19659002] In a post on his Telegram channel, founder Pavel Durov says the company will replace the iOS application with the Swift rebuild "within the next week or two."
"As a result, Telegram will be faster, smarter and more efficient," he writes. "Since it will be based on a completely new code base, some minor bugs and errors may occur, but we will make sure they are correct, or should say" quickly ", corrected."
"This change will make Telegram the most popular messaging application written completely on Swift, some would say it's a big risk, but I think someone has to take those risks and be the first to implement new technologies, such as e2e encryption. [end-to-end] or Swift, "adds Durov.
At the time of this writing, the original Telegram application for iOS and the rebuilding of Telegram X are currently available for download in the App Store.
It is not clear if Telegram will also completely replace the Android application with the Telegram X version for Android (or not). Or what will the change of iOS mean for Telegram users running the application on a version of Apple's mobile operating system that is not compatible with Swift applications (iOS 6 or earlier).
Telegram could be calculating that only a very small number of it is likely that its iOS users are far behind in the iOS updates. (Considering that the Android ecosystem is much more fragmented.)
It is also not clear: if Telegram plans to open Telegram X source code.
It has an open source Telegram client code, but it has also been criticized for not publish the most recent versions immediately and do not open the server-side code. (Although in the FAQs it still makes the claim that: "Any code will be released eventually")
We have contacted the company with additional questions about the switch to Telegram X and will update this publication with any response.
In the current App Store description for Telegram X, the iOS app is advertised as "an alternative Telegram client built on Swift, with higher speed, lighter animations, themes and more efficient battery usage".
The reconstruction of Swift, which has been available on the App Store since January, has a 4.0 star rating (out of 5), and reviewers praise its faster speed, but also report some errors and / or complain some missing features.