Telegram Messenger Sticks It To Apple Watch

Everyone has their favorite messaging app. Mine’s Telegram, and there are several reasons why. But beyond end-to-end encryption, cross-platform compatibility, and custom expiration parameters, the coolest thing the service does — and the reason I really love it so much — is that it lets users make and share their own emoji.

Kind of.

Of course, Telegram for Apple Watch didn’t launch when the wearable did, so I wasn’t able to experience the platform’s emoji-linked sticker packs on the small screen. I also wasn’t able to get Apple Watch notifications from some of my best friends. Fortunately, Telegram made its way to users’ wrists a few weeks ago, so it’s rejuvenated — if only slightly — my pre-watchOS 2 interest in Apple Watch:

Unfortunately, though, the overall experience is kind of crummy. And while I expected the actual messaging aspect to be limited and pared down as per everything else so far, I was really hoping Telegram would come through as an alternative for those giant animated emoji baked into Apple Watch’s stock OS. And though Telegram’s stickers do have that potential, it’s not been realized so far. On iPhone, iPad, and Mac, Telegram’s stickers are big, bold, and lots of fun, but on Apple Watch — for whatever reason — they’re tiny and practically pointless. I was looking forward to my custom stickers filling up that bright, beautiful P-OLED screen, but all I got was a tiny blip of what I (and everyone else) originally created. Worse, users can only scroll up to the last few messages, even in standard “non-private” chat sessions, so anyone who fires off a series of related, message-conveying stickers might only get a part of said message across if the recipient is checking only Apple Watch itself. Hopefully, these issues will be sorted out soon.

But even in the here and now, all is not lost!

In the interest of making things betta (and meta!), I’ve put together an Apple Watch sticker pack. It includes every model and combination Apple makes, except for the 38mm variants of identical 42mm builds. In the interest of brevity (and because I didn’t feel like making these things to scale), I left those tiny repeats out. Trust me, on Telegram for Apple Watch, everything’s already tiny enough. But at least it’s there.

So download and install the Apple Watch Telegram sticker pack, and enjoy your favorite industrial designer’s crowning achievements on your favorite industrial designer’s crowing achievement.

(For my favorite industrial designer’s crowning achievements, however, you’ll have to install a few different packs. If you’re interested, check my Twitter account for links.)