There's no love lost between Telegram founder Pavel Durov and the Apple Inc. He has always been firing broadsides at the Cupertino-based company. In the past, he has taken potshots at it for being 'totalitarian', and for 'putting restrictions on app development'.
Now, firing a fresh salvo, Durov has blamed Apple for its obscure App Store review process that is delaying his platform from releasing an update to its app that will 'revolutionise how people express themselves in messaging'.
As usual, Durov put out a short post on his channel in which he pulled no punches against a decidedly bigger player. He alleged that a Telegram update had been stuck in Apple's review for two weeks.
Not hiding his sarcasm, he said if Telegram, one of the top 10 most popular apps globally, is receiving this treatment, "one can only imagine the difficulties experienced by smaller app developers".
Apple, as ever, remained unfazed and has not responded to the latest outrage against it.
Telegram unhappy with 'tech monopolies', too
Durov did not spell out what the update is all about. But claimed it will change how people communicate. "...our upcoming update – which is about to revolutionize how people express themselves in messaging – has been stuck in Apple's 'review' for two weeks, without explanation or any feedback provided by Apple," he said. It's not just demoralizing: it causes direct financial losses to hundred of thousands of mobile apps globally, he added.
Durov also drew attention to the larger problem of 'tech monopolies', which of course involves Google too.
"This harm goes on top of the 30% tax Apple and Google take from app developers – which, according to them, is supposed to pay for the resources needed to review apps. The regulators in the EU and elsewhere are slowly starting to look into these abusive practices. But the economic damage that has already been inflicted by Apple on the tech industry won't be undone."
In June, Telegram, it may be recalled, announced paid subscription on its platform that is likely to cost around $5 (around Rs 450) a month. The premium offering comes with an option to organise the chats in a better way. Users will be able to pin up to 10 chats in the main list, can join up to 1000 channels and can connect up to 4 accounts. The premium offer also increases the maximum size of file transfer and allows users to transfer files with up to 4GB in size compared to 2GB as available earlier.
Telegram is one app that is pretty regular with its update, and on an average drops one every month. For the record, in 2021, it had 12 updates.
