The pandemic and other ongoing things in the world right now can bring a lot of thoughts and stories. And while you have 280 characters now on Twitter plus threaded messages, they think sometimes you need more than that. They are now testing and rolling out a new voice Tweet feature for iOS users that will let you record 140 seconds of your thoughts and tweet it alongside your text tweet. It will be available for iOS users over the next few weeks but hopefully, it will come to Android soon.
Twitter says that voice tweeting is not really that different from how you regularly tweet, except with less typing. Open the tweet composer and you’ll see a new icon with wavelengths beside the camera icon. Tapping this will see your profile icon with a record button at the bottom. Tap the button to start recording. You have 140 seconds for one tweet but if you have more to say, just keep on talking as it will automatically start a new thread.
After you’ve finished all that, tap the Done button and you’ll go back to your composer screen. You can add some text to it as a “caption” or an explainer to your voice tweet before you actually tweet it out. The voice tweet will appear on the timeline of those who follow you alongside the other regular tweets. Those who are on iOS will be able to play it back in a new window docked at the bottom of the screen and can continue scrolling through their timeline while listening to the voice tweet.
As for Android users, unfortunately, Twitter hasn’t said anything about plans to bring it to the platform. Users can view and listen to the voice tweets from iOS users but there isn’t a special dock so they’ll have to listen to it on the screen itself. Maybe it’s just taking them longer to adapt it to Android but hopefully, this is something that will come in the future.
Twitter says the voice tweet feature is now rolling out to a limited group of iOS users. They’ll be rolling it out more widely in the coming weeks until all iOS Twitter users will be able to have it. Those of us on Android will be quietly waiting and just make do with Twitter the “old-fashioned” way.
