Twitter’s app on iOS has been updated to support Elon Musk’s $7.99 per month Twitter Blue. The app’s latest
update on the Apple
App Store says you have to
pay for Blue to get verified on the platform “just like the celebrities, companies, and politicians you already
follow.”
The new Twitter Blue subscription isn’t available just yet, though. Esther Crawford, a product manager at Twitter
confirmed
it’s not live right now but says some users “may see us making updates because we are testing and
pushing changes in real-time.”
Twitter shipped its new Blue subscription for verification ahead of Musk’s Monday deadline given to
employees. I updated and verified accounts are now the first tab of notifications. pic.twitter.com/xfTl3b3GYk— Alex Heath (@alexeheath) November
5,
2022
While the updated app initially showed a revamped notifications screen that defaulted to displaying tweets from
Verified users in the first tab (helping to promote the idea that paying for the new plan is the best way to
make sure people actually see your tweets), this has since disappeared. As pointed out by one of my colleagues
at The Verge and reverse
engineer Jane Manchun Wong, the new layout disappears after quitting out of the app and opening it
again.
The app displayed a “Blue looks good on you, enjoy your verified checkmark” pop-up when users try to sign up to
Blue as well, but without the actual opt-in for displaying a “verified” label on your profile. This message also
disappeared from my colleague’s app after quitting and reopening Twitter, so it’s unclear whether or not all
users will see this show up.
Whenever Twitter does decide to let users display checkmarks on their profiles, we
have an idea about what that process will look like thanks to Wong. App researcher Nima Owji has also
given us a glimpse of the new
“official
account” labels Twitter could start applying to notable users, as well as a “verified
account” confirmation on
profiles, which indicates an account’s verified “because it’s subscribed to Twitter Blue.”
Screenshot:The Verge
It’s still not clear when verification through Twitter Blue will go live (or when it will arrive on Android), but
it seems like it’s happening soon. Musk initially gave the developers working on Blue until Monday, November
7th, to complete these changes or else
face getting fired.
It looks like verification will be the only feature available with the Twitter Blue subscription to start. Other
perks, like fewer ads, the ability to post longer videos, and priority ranking to help “lower the visibility of
scams, spam, and bots,” are listed as “coming soon.” Twitter Blue is only available in the US, Canada,
Australia, New Zealand, and the UK for now. Crawford says it’s “coming soon” to Europe.
When Musk
announced the new Twitter Blue subscription last week, he hinted at providing access to paywalled
articles, but this feature isn’t among those listed in the update. He also pulled the ad-free
article perk that came with the previous $4.99 / month Twitter Blue subscription and reportedly pushed
to make
Twitter’s “edit” button available to all users, not just subscribers. On Friday, Musk
laid off around half of Twitter’s employees across several departments, including product trust and
safety, policy, communications, tweet curation, ethical AI, and others.
Update, 3:08PM ET: Updated to add information from a product manager at
Twitter.
Update, 3:25PM ET: Updated to add more information about Twitter’s upcoming
“official account” labels and verified account confirmations.
Update, 4:34PM ET: Updated to note that the revamped notifications tab is no longer
available.
Update, 5:15PM ET: Updated to note that not all users will see information about
the verification process after updating.
Update, 5:27PM ET: Updated to note that the new Blue subscription is coming soon to
Europe.
