Twitter has opened its audio venue, Spaces, for Android users, the company tweeted on Tuesday.
Twitter unveiled a limited version of the Clubhouse rival on iOS in January. While any user of Twitter’s iOS app can join and listen to Spaces, only a few can currently offer it. Twitter said it gives Spaces to a ‘very small feedback group’ to begin with, with women and people from other marginalized groups. Now users of the Android app from Twitter can join and also listen to Spaces.
Android people, our beta is growing! from today you will be able to join and chat in any space. INSIDE will be able to create your own, but we’re still working out a few things. keep you outside living spaces above your home tl
– Spaces (@TwitterSpaces) March 2, 2021
The tweet of the announcement does not mention when Android users will be able to host Spaces; Android users seem to be able to talk and listen to conversations in Spaces, but not yet have their own chats. A Twitter spokesman said in an email to The edge that both Android and iOS users will soon be able to start and listen to Spaces.
Twitter has increased its ratings on voice-based features over the past few months. In addition to launching Spaces in beta last June, it launched audio tweets on iOS for a limited number of people, allowing users to record and send audio messages of up to 140 seconds – a nod to the original tweet length of 140 characters. It also offered support for voice-based instant messaging in India last month for both iOS and Android applications.
Twitter faced criticism for not including captions about its audio messages for deaf and hard of hearing users, but said it would add automatic captions to audio and video in tweets sometime this year.