Swiftgram

Swiftgram's 2nd Birthday!
Two years (and 12 days) ago, Swiftgram went live in the App Store, and I want to recap this year, sharing stats and thoughts with you.

This year, Swiftgram reached
• 628k monthly active accounts, more than doubled from 281k
• 4.3/5 App Store rating, down from 4.5
• 21 updates, roughly every two weeks
• Same 100% Open Source
I want to once again thank you for your invaluable trust and support!

Swiftgram Wrapped 2025

⌚️ Apple Watch companion
Telegram removed support for the Apple Watch companion a while ago, but still had it in the source code. I've adopted it to the latest watchOS and made it available for everyone. This is a very niche feature (only 0.4% of users tried it), but fun experience with old code, yet I won't support it. Unfortunately, the foundation of this companion is very old, and Apple will likely remove support in the near future. Still, I'd be happy to see a simple companion that will be able to quickly do basic tasks with the wrist.

⚡️

Swiftgram Pro
Working on frequent Swiftgram updates requires a lot of time and effort. In March, I launched the Swiftgram Pro subscription to cover my efforts. I was unable to show the value of Pro features and reach the expected revenue.
However, today, Swiftgram is unsustainable for me.
Next year, I plan to experiment with paid features, their value proposition, and pricing. This might bring some frequent changes to understand what really "sticks".

💸

How much do I spend on Swiftgram?
Last year, I promised myself to post a bit more, yet I am still a bit shy to disturb you with notifications (might create a separate channel). I was happy to see that my recent post on the behind-the-scenes of creating an iOS fork got a lot of attention and positive feedback. Stay tuned for more quality content!

🔍

Global search ban
For the entire year, nobody was able to find @swiftgram channel. It was very disappointing to know that being a fully open-source and trusted fork puts Swiftgram on the same level as other apps that violate ToS, violate source code licenses, or leak your personal data. It looks like somebody raised Telegram's attention this September, and Swiftgram was reinstated in search. Thank you!
Now it’s back to normal - everyone who searches for “Swiftgram” will immediately see this channel.

🖌

Liquid glass
The biggest design controversy of the year noticeably affected Swiftgram's rating. Telegram made a very bold decision to replicate the Glass design on iOS 18 and even Android. But both lovers and haters found me doing a wrong thing. Waiting for an update without bugs? - too long, 1 star. Releasing buggy app with new design? - too bad, 1 star.
This is yet another confirmation that it's hard to trust App Store ratings and it's easy to manipulate them. Do your own research, see how developer reacts to the reviews to understand what to expect from the app.

💬

Swiftgram chats
They're a bit messy. Lots of off-topic, repeated questions, dead language chats, and a lack of stable anti-spam automation. I want to focus on the quality of Swiftgram communities, and right now, they're far from what I expect.

While this post reflect mostly on less positive highlights of the year, I want to be transparent about current things and what to expect next. I will be happy to hear your comments below or directly. Looking forward to a very positive 3rd birthday ahead 💪

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