Twitter is testing status updates for your status updates

Twitter logo
(Image credit: Twitter)

Twitter is testing a new feature that will allow people to add a status to their tweets, although it's only available to a limited number of people in the United States and Australia.

The new feature will allow Twitter users to "provide more context for your followers," a spokesperson told TechCrunch. “So whether you are about to drop a hot Tweet thread, share your shower thoughts, or have a bad case of the Mondays, your Tweets can better convey what you are up to.”

Notably, users can't enter their own status and instead have to select from a predefined list of options. Those options include "Spoiler Alert" and "Shower thoughts," but we can presumably expect the list to expand as the test progresses.

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One tweet at a time

Twitter says that the new statuses will appear below a user's name and will be attached to a single tweet, meaning these statuses won't roll over from one message to another. It's clear that Twitter intends for these statuses to add color to specific tweets, rather than give people an insight into the user's overall mood — as they might do in apps that offer similar options, like WhatsApp.

While Twitter is one of the best iPhone apps for sharing short form messages with the world, that isn't enough for the social network. It continues to tweak things and add features to compete with other apps and services, including Clubhouse and others. It isn't immediately clear whether this new test will result in a feature that will roll out to the wider user base, but it does seem likely that if it does, it'll be limited to Twitter's own apps.

That, as is often the case, means that those using third-party apps like Tweetbot and Aviary are likely going to be out of luck.

Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too.

Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.