Telegram's CEO says voice calls and custom themes are coming to the app

 

@adinhorman9 Hey there. Thanks. We will.

— Pavel Durov (@durov) January 13, 2017

Despite the confirmation, it is not clear when exactly will Telegram adopt these new features, as the company has so far refused to further elaborate on Durov's statement on Twitter.

The desktop version of the app recently added custom themes in its 1.0 version, so it's safe to assume that it won't be too long before they appear on mobile. As for the inclusion of encrypted voice/video calls, a Telegram tweet from April 2015 reveals that the company has developed the technology, but did not see it as a top priority at the time:

However, things have changed since 2015, as many other messaging platforms (Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Kik, WeChat et al.) have added audio or video calling capabilities to their services. One observant Redditer even located a hidden call functionality feature within the 3.16 beta version of Telegram, which could indicate that it will roll out soon rather than later.

via VentureBeat