Clubhouse, the audio chat app, launched on iOS and iPadOS as a media platform with a semi-exclusive vibe of invite-only chatrooms – and soon it will roll out to Android phones, too, starting with beta tests.
There’s no set schedule for the beta yet, nor a plan for which regions it will roll out to first – just that a ‘rough beta’ was heading out to ‘a handful of friendly testers,’ according to a blog post from parent company Notion.
The post did explain other updates coming to Clubhouse, including some rudimentary additions for the fledgling platform like prompts for new attendees to follow clubs a few minutes into listening to them. There’s also support for gestures to help VoiceOver accessibility users figure out who’s speaking along with suggestions and notifications improvements.
Clubhouse: iOS only for now
Clubhouse launched earlier in the year on iOS to give listeners audio-only access to rooms for hosts to lead discussions, which have featured celebrities like Oprah, Elon Musk and Tiffany Haddish.
But Android users were left in the cold, and other companies have scrambled to release alternatives in the interim like Twitter Spaces, though reportedly some imitation apps appearing in the Google Play store have included malware. Whether the Android version launches before other reported rivals land is another big unknown, and the competition may be fierce: Facebook is making a Clubhouse-like feature, per the New York Times, and so is LInkedIn, according to TechCrunch, and Spotify acquired an audio-only app to repurpose for its musicians and podcasters to chat with fans.
Via PhoneArena
