Not necessarily. Wire has shown that a Telegram like UX is possible with end-to-end encryption, multi-device sync and multi-platform support. It's just that Wire and Signal are slow in catching up and seem like they need a slightly larger team and/or better management of the development.

> didn't know things were that much better in the Telegram world.

I keep trying any new messaging platform like this, especially if it promises privacy and better security. So I'd recommend you try Telegram and see for yourself what it provides. I'm heavily impressed by what it offers and use it as my primary messaging client, but don't like the crypto and the fact that normal chats are not end-to-end encrypted.

> Seems to me though that if you're willing to use telegram you might as well just use iMessage or What's App though?

That depends on which company one is more comfortable with on the privacy front. I don't consider iMessage to be equivalent to Telegram in features or UX (it's actually inferior and has issues with handling SMS as a backup option). WhatsApp being connected to Facebook is a no-no from the privacy point of view.