Telegram CEO Pavel Durov said Apple refused to approve the latest version of the Telegram app, so a number of animated emoji, called Telemoji, were removed.
The problem seems to be that Telegram is building Telemoji on top of Apple's emojis. While the emojis themselves are standardized, Telegram is designing their own interpretation.
"After extensive media coverage based on my previous post, Apple contacted us again with a request to ease our pending Telegram update, we had to remove Telemoji," Durov said, quoted from PC Mag, Monday (15/8/2022).
Telemoji Telegram boasts of being a higher quality vector animated version of the standard emoji. It's only natural that Telegram then objected to deleting Telemoji. Durov thinks Apple is jealous of Telemoji.
"This is a confusing move on behalf of Apple, as Telemoji will bring a new dimension to low-resolution static emoji and should significantly enrich their ecosystem," Durov said.
Telegram then compromised by removing Telemoji based on Apple's emoji from its app without giving up entirely on the feature. Durov says they have finally released another 10 emoji packs with the latest version of Telegram for iOS.
"Users deserve more emoji choices," he said.
Telemoji is now available to Premium Telegram subscribers. Telegram has also introduced new privacy settings for new voice messages, stickers, GIFs, and emoji panels on iOS, and the ability to grant Premium subscriptions to other users with the latest updates to its iOS app.