Twitter begins testing paid account verification on iOS

Twitter has started rolling out support for the new, more expensive version of its Blue subscription. As of Saturday, the company's iOS app now reflects that users can soon pay $8 per month for a verified account. The changelog notes that people who sign up for Twitter Blue will get a tick, "just like the celebrities, businesses, and politicians you already follow."

However, Twitter continues to roll out the necessary backend changes to support the change more broadly. Following reports of users not seeing a blue tick on their account even after signing up for the new subscription, Esther Crawford, the company's product manager, tweeted that the updated service is coming soon. "The new Blue isn't live yet - the sprint towards our launch continues, but some people may see us making updates as we test and push changes in real time," she said.

At this point, Twitter has yet to update its Android app, and other benefits Elon Musk promised would be part of the Twitter Blue redesign, such as the ability to post longer videos, are listed as “coming soon” in the iOS update changelog posted today by Twitter. At some point after the release went live, the app briefly had a new notification view that only showed content from verified users.

It's unclear when all of the things Musk promised will be in place, but he reportedly gave employees working on verification a paid feature until November 7 to finish the job or lose their jobs. On Friday, the company began laying off around 50% of its workforce, leaving entire teams gutted.

Update 7:38 PM ET: Added more context and information on Twitter's rollout of its new Blue subscription service.

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