The contest task is fully completed. Unfortunately, the numerous issues discovered during testing prevent it from taking a higher place.

General
– The default speed of the message sending effects does not follow the provided mockups.
– Users cannot interact with the app while any animation is active. 

Text messages
– When replying to messages, the text may escape the message bubble.
– Replacing a link that has an Instant View page with a general link preview will result in the message bubble glitching and blinking.

Emoji
– After sending an animated emoji for the first time, its sticker outline does not disappear immediately and remains in the chat for too long.

Stickers
– Sending animated stickers from the sticker set preview will cause the app to crash.
– Sending effects are not supported for static Stickers.
Video messages
– The radial progress bar color does not follow the provided design guidelines.
– The radial progress bar animation continues after the message is sent.
– The video message entity appears in the chat with a jump at the final stage of the animation cycle.
– Recording video messages on iPhone 6s Plus iOS 14.4 results in a white blink after sending.

Background animations
– The default color does not follow the provided mockups.
– Changing the device orientation causes the layout to be distorted.
– The app does not prevent the status bar from being displayed on 4" devices, such as iPhone SE 1, while the device is in landscape orientation. This causes the status bar to cover the chat header.

We would like to separately note the great attention to detail in the handling of pinned messages.