Twitter announced this afternoon that it’s rolling out a new core feature: audio tweets.
“You can Tweet a Tweet. But now you can Tweet your voice,” the company said in a tweet that did not utilize the new feature. The option is rolling out first to “a limited group of people on Twitter for iOS to start.” If you have early access to the feature, here’s how to try it:
- Compose a new tweet
- tap the audio button (beside the option to add a photo)
- tap the record button
- and then tap done
Twitter does not often make changes to its core functionality, but since 2006 it’s gradually moved beyond short, SMS-friendly text snippets to supporting photos, animated gifs, and videos. Twitter is limiting audio tweets to 140-second clips (like the original 140-character limit), but the company says it will automatically create a thread of tweets when users’ recordings stretch past that time limit. Twitter won’t allow users to reply to tweets with their voice, a decision presumably shaped by the social network’s failures to address harassment and abuse on the service.
The feature will come to all iOS users “in the coming weeks,” Twitter says. Fast Company has contacted Twitter for more details on the rollout.
nothing to share, we’re just testing it out on iOS to start
— Twitter Comms (@TwitterComms) June 17, 2020
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