Twitter Expands Rollout of Voice Tweets Feature for iOS Users

Twitter says it's making its voice tweets feature available to more users on iOS. Launched in June for a limited number of users, voice tweets is designed to allow people to tweet with their voice, sending voice-based messages instead of text.

voicetweets2
Voice tweets can be created by opening up the tweet composer and tapping the new wavelengths icon. A screen then opens with a user's Twitter icon, which can be tapped to begin a recording.

Twitter users can capture up to 140 seconds of audio, but continuous recording is possible and longer audio will create multiple voice tweets.

Listening to a voice tweet can be done by tapping on the image in the Twitter timeline. On iOS, playback starts in an audio player that's docked at the bottom of the timeline so users can continue to scroll through Twitter.


Since their arrival on iOS, voice tweets have been criticized for lacking accessibility in the form of audio transcriptions. That criticism led Twitter employees to reveal they'd been asked to volunteer their time on top of their usual work to focus on accessibility.

The ensuing flak led Twitter to tell The Verge that it was exploring how to build a "more dedicated group" to focus on accessibility, and the company has since announced new two teams in that vein. Twitter subsequently said it plans to add automated captions to audio and video on the platform by "early 2021."

Popular Stories

iPhone 17 Pro Render Front Page Tech

iPhone 17 Pro Launching Later This Year With These 10 New Features

Sunday March 23, 2025 10:00 am PDT by
While the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are not expected to launch until September, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices. iPhone 17 Pro's alleged design via Front Page Tech Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of March 2025: Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone...
iCloud General Feature Redux

iPhone Users Who Pay for iCloud Storage Receive a New Perk

Thursday March 20, 2025 12:01 am PDT by
If you pay for iCloud storage on your iPhone, Apple has a new perk for you, at no additional cost. The new perk is the ability to create invitations in the Apple Invites app for the iPhone, which launched in the App Store last month. In the Apple Invites app, iCloud+ subscribers can create invitations for any occasion, such as birthday parties, graduations, baby showers, and more. Anyone ...
iOS 18

Top 5 New Features Coming in iOS 18.4

Friday March 21, 2025 3:26 pm PDT by
We're not getting new Siri Apple Intelligence features in iOS 18.4 as expected, but the upcoming update does have quite a few new additions that will be worth upgrading for. We've rounded up the five best features to look forward to, and if you're not running the beta, you can expect to get access to these in early April. Priority Notifications If you have an iPhone or iPad that supports...
Generic iOS 19 Feature Mock

iOS 19 Coming in June With These New Features

Thursday March 20, 2025 2:04 pm PDT by
While the first iOS 19 beta is still more than two months away, there are already plenty of rumors about the upcoming software update. Below, we recap the key iOS 19 rumors so far. visionOS-Like Design In January, the YouTube channel Front Page Tech revealed a redesigned Camera app that is allegedly planned for iOS 19. According to Front Page Tech host Jon Prosser, the Camera app...
Generic iOS 18

Apple Seeds iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 Release Candidate With Priority Notifications, Ambient Music and More

Monday March 24, 2025 10:07 am PDT by
Apple today seeded the release candidate versions of upcoming iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 updates to developers for testing purposes, with the software coming a week after Apple released the fourth betas. iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 can be downloaded from the Settings app on a compatible device by going to General > Software Update. With iOS 18.4, Apple is adding the Priority Notifications...
airpods max 2024 colors

Don't Buy Into Apple's Hype About AirPods Max Gaining Lossless Audio

Monday March 24, 2025 4:24 pm PDT by
Apple today announced that AirPods Max with a USB-C port will be gaining support for lossless audio and ultra-low latency audio with a firmware update next month, alongside the release of iOS 18.4, iPadOS 18.4, and macOS 15.4. For context, audio files are typically compressed to keep file sizes smaller. There are lossy compression standards like MP3, and Apple's own Advanced Audio Codec...
Foldable iPhone 2023 Feature Iridescent Search

Foldable iPhone Expected to Launch Next Year, Costing Around $2,000

Monday March 24, 2025 3:43 am PDT by
Apple will launch its long-rumored foldable iPhone next year with a ~$2,000 premium price tag attached, expects well-connected Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman. Gurman's comments on Apple's launch plans for its first foldable device appeared in the Q&A section of his latest Power On newsletter. Earlier this month, the reporter said Apple's foldable iPhone could be arriving "as early as 2026,"...
iOS 19 Rounded UI Elements Light

iOS 19: What to Expect From Apple's Dramatic Design Overhaul?

Monday March 24, 2025 9:47 am PDT by
Earlier this month, Bloomberg reported that Apple is planning "one of the most dramatic software overhauls in the company's history" – an update that aims to bring iOS, iPadOS, and macOS into closer visual alignment. The redesign is said to be "loosely based" on visionOS, the software behind Apple's Vision Pro headset, and will reportedly update the look of icons, menus, apps, windows, and...

Top Rated Comments

shapesinaframe Avatar
59 months ago
A multi billion dollar company wants employees to volunteer their time?

I guess you don’t become a multi billion dollar company by doing stupid things like paying people.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
DrumApple Avatar
59 months ago
People will abuse the S out of this. Sex noise, racist tirades, vulgarities... how do they intend to moderate it? They can't even moderate text well.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Le Big Mac Avatar
59 months ago
Why do I want this? To the extent Twitter is great, it's the ability to scroll quickly through lots of short snippets and see what might be worth clicking through. I can't do that with audio, where I have to pause and listen to someone. No quick glance, no skimming.

And FWIW, that sample image looks like total clickbait. All it needs is a photo of an attractive woman with some skimpy article of clothing to make it complete.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
itsmilo Avatar
59 months ago
The Heck. Why not do that during working hours? It’s for work no?
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
CarlJ Avatar
59 months ago

Are they purposefully trying to instigate people to create radio ad-type content? ... So, to get back to the subject, leave the radio-type rambling for audio podcasts.
As well, if there’s content that they, as a private company, want to censor (hate speech or Russian bot farms or some such), they’ve just built themselves a system where it’s much harder to detect that - algorithms can scan millions of words of text messages a second. They won’t do nearly as well trying to do that with audio.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
davidjschloss Avatar
59 months ago

The Heck. Why not do that during working hours? It’s for work no?
If you read the thread linked in the article, it says that it is during normal working hours, however it's not budgeted into their time. In other words, They've got 8 hour days, and not exactly 8 hours of work, so they do this work during those work hours.

But to be clear, there's no formal accessibility team at Twitter—that's one of the things these people are volunteering. And there's no compensation to the team for adding this work to their original work.

They are not, however, being asked to volunteer, or being asked to stay "after work" to do this. They're just cramming it into their normal 8 hours with the sort of nod nod wink wink of their supervisors.

The bigger story here is that Twitter has no accessibility team.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)