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

maxresdefault

Apple Shows Off a Key Reason to Upgrade to the iPhone 17

Saturday February 7, 2026 9:26 am PST by
Apple today shared an ad that shows how the upgraded Center Stage front camera on the latest iPhones improves the process of taking a group selfie. "Watch how the new front facing camera on iPhone 17 Pro takes group selfies that automatically expand and rotate as more people come into frame," says Apple. While the ad is focused on the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max, the regular iPhone...
apple wallet drivers license feature iPhone 15 pro

Apple Says These 7 U.S. States Plan to Offer iPhone Driver's Licenses

Monday February 9, 2026 6:24 am PST by
In select U.S. states, residents can add their driver's license or state ID to the Apple Wallet app on the iPhone and Apple Watch, and then use it to display proof of identity or age at select airports and businesses, and in select apps. The feature is currently available in 13 U.S. states and Puerto Rico, and it is expected to launch in at least seven more in the future. To set up the...
m5 macbook pro deal

Why You Shouldn't Buy the Next MacBook Pro

Tuesday February 10, 2026 4:27 pm PST by
Apple is planning to launch new MacBook Pro models as soon as early March, but if you can, this is one generation you should skip because there's something much better in the works. We're waiting on 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models with M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, with few changes other than the processor upgrade. There won't be any tweaks to the design or the display, but later this...
Apple Logo Zoomed

Apple Expected to Launch These 10+ Products Over the Coming Months

Tuesday February 10, 2026 6:33 am PST by
It has been a slow start to 2026 for Apple product launches, with only a new AirTag and a special Apple Watch band released so far. We are still waiting for MacBook Pro models with M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, the iPhone 17e, a lower-cost MacBook with an iPhone chip, long-rumored updates to the Apple TV and HomePod mini, and much more. Apple is expected to release/update the following products...
iOS 26

Apple Releases iOS 26.3 and iPadOS 26.3

Wednesday February 11, 2026 10:07 am PST by
Apple today released iOS 26.3 and iPadOS 26.3, the latest updates to the iOS 26 and iPadOS 26 operating systems that came out in September. The new software comes almost two months after Apple released iOS 26.2 and iPadOS 26.2. The new software can be downloaded on eligible iPhones and iPads over-the-air by going to Settings > General > Software Update. According to Apple's release notes, ...

Top Rated Comments

70 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)
70 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
70 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
70 months ago
The Heck. Why not do that during working hours? It’s for work no?
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
CarlJ Avatar
70 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
70 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)