The Twitter app on iOS has now been updated to support Elon Musk‘s new asking price for Twitter Blue at $7.99. In the latest update on the Apple App Store, there is a mention saying that users now have to pay for Twitter Blue to get verified on the platform “just like the celebrities, companies, and politicians you already follow.”
The update is going to roll out only to Australia, New Zealand, the UK, US and Canada at first before being made global.
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However, the new version of the premium subscription service isn’t available just yet. Esther Crawford, a product manager at Twitter posted on the social media platform that the new version of Blue wasn’t “live yet”. She went on to say that some users might see changes in the app going forward as engineers were working on “pushing changes in real time.”
Its not clear when verification through Twitter Blue will go live or when it will arrive on Android devices, but it is likely to happen soon. Musk has given developers working on the service until Monday, November 7 to get things in order or risk being fired, according to a report from The Verge.
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For now however, one of the only perks of being subscribed to the paid subscription is that users will be able to have the blue checkmark on their profile that shows they are verified. Other features, like fewer ads, the ability to post longer videos and priority ranking of one’s content to “lower the visibility of scams, spam, and bots, are listed as “coming soon.”
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Friday brought sweeping changes to Twitter as Musk fired over half of the company’s staff in a bid to cut costs. In a tweet justifying his actions, Musk had written that the company had been losing $4 million a day and that fired employees had been offered three months of severance as opposed to two.