Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk, is reportedly planning to delay the re-launch of the Twitter Blue subscription to avoid Apple’s 30 per cent App Store fee. The revamped Twitter Blue offers a bunch of perks, but most importantly, it lets users purchase the blue verification badge. Following Musk’s takeover in late October, Twitter experimented with Twitter Blue for iPhones in select countries. After several spam profiles received the blue badge, the company stopped the rollout to improve the service. The revamped subscription was slated to launch this month for $8 per month.The Verge and Platformer learned about the Twitter Blue delay through internal sources. The reports do not share any rollout timeline, though more details are expected in the coming days. Twitter Blue is yet to be launched in India as well.
In the last few days, Musk publicly criticised the iPhone maker for its strict app store policies and questioned the company why it stopped advertising on Twitter. The Tesla CEO also claimed that Apple’s decision to levy heavy app store fees and pull out ads on Twitter shows the company is against “free speech”. A report pointed out that Apple spent roughly $131,600 on Twitter ads between November 10 to 16, down from $220,800 between October 16 to 22. The drop in spending coincides with Musk formally taking over the company in late October. Interestingly, Apple was also the top advertiser on Twitter in the first quarter of 2022.
