Twitter is testing letting people retweet and add a video reaction

Twitter
Twitter (Image credit: iMore)

What you need to know

  • Twitter is testing a change that allows people to add video reactions to retweets.
  • Reactions are available to a small group of users on iOS.
  • There is currently no telling when the change will roll out to the wider user base.

Social network Twitter is testing a change that allows people to retweet something and then adds their own video-based reaction. The "Quote Tweet with reaction" option is being made available to a small number of iOS users right now but will likely roll out to everyone eventually depending on feedback.

The move, which was announced via the Twitter Support account, is one that might seem odd at first with some people already questioning whether Twitter knows how people use its own service. But retweets with a reaction could be something that influencers make great use of and as ever, time will tell.

Here's how Twitter describes the feature along with a couple of screenshots showing what things will look like.

Testing on iOS: when you tap the Retweet icon, choose "Quote Tweet with reaction" to create and customize your very own Tweet Take –– a reaction video (or photo) with the Tweet embedded.

The screenshots show something that looks similar to the way people can embed Instagram posts into Stories and that could be where Twitter got its idea.

Unfortunately, this is likely to be another feature that requires people to use the official Twitter app, even once it has officially rolled out. That's disappointing — the best iPhone twitter app doesn't come from Twitter, after all.

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.