Twitter opened its audio chat room, Spaces, for Android users, the company tweeted on Tuesday.
Twitter introduced a limited version of the competitor Clubhouse on iOS in January. While any user of the Twitter iOS app can sign in and listen to Spaces, only a few can host it at the moment. Twitter said he was giving Spaces a “small feedback group” to start, with women and people from other marginalized groups taking priority. Now, users of the Twitter Android app can also sign in and listen to Spaces.
Android folks, our beta is growing! as of today you will be able to enter and chat in any space. Soon you will be able to create your own, but we are still working on some things. stay out of live spaces above your home tl
– Spaces (@TwitterSpaces) March 2, 2021
The ad tweet does not mention when Android users will be able to host Spaces; it looks like Android users can talk and listen to conversations on Spaces, but they still can’t host their own chats. A Twitter spokesman said in an email to The Verge that Android and iOS users will be able to start and listen to Spaces “soon”.
Twitter has increased its investments in voice-based resources in the past few months. In addition to launching Spaces in beta, he introduced audio tweets last June on iOS to a limited number of people, allowing users to record and send audio messages of up to 140 seconds – a nod to the original 140-character tweet length . It also introduced support for voice-based direct messages in India last month for iOS and Android apps.
Twitter faced some criticism for not including subtitles in its audio messages for its deaf and hearing impaired users, but said it would add automatic subtitles to audio and video in tweets later this year.