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KUALA LUMPUR, March 24 ― The audio-chat platform is currently only available to iOS users, and are still only letting people in through invites. And it looks like Clubhouse is still not giving Android users any access to their app anytime soon.
In his latest Townhall event, Clubhouse co-founder Paul Davison mentioned that the company was working “really hard” to come to Android. However, he said it was going to take a “couple of months” to make that happen — which would mean that Android users will have to wait until June or July 2021 until they are able to have access to Clubhouse.
On 1 March, we reported that Davidson maintained that Android is a “top feature” in development for Clubhouse, but he didn’t even give us a rough estimate of when that was going to come. A month before that, Clubhouse said that it had plans to expand its app to Android, so it just feels like they’re constantly delaying it.
The Android operating system has about 71.9 per cent of the global handset market. Clubhouse delaying its availability to Android users will only deter them further from using the app as their staple audio-chat platform — as other apps like Twitter is already catching on.
Twitter is launching its Clubhouse-like feature Spaces — and it will be available to both iOS and Android users in April. Spaces is currently being rolled out in small groups to “gather feedback from a variety of communities” on the platform.
Other platforms like Telegram and Facebook are also introducing a Clubhouse-like audio chat feature. Telegram’s Voice Chat can be used in Groups and Channels, and there are even no limits to the amount of people allowed to join a voice chat — meanwhile Clubhouse has a limit of 5,000 users per room.
As for Facebook, its audio-chat platform is “still under development”. However, you can expect that it will be more of an extension of Facebook’s Messenger Rooms.
In addition to its availability to Android, Davison also said that Clubhouse will be dropping its invite-only status “in the coming months”. He noted that he wants the app to open up to everyone, because there are “so many incredible creators not yet on Clubhouse, who have an audience elsewhere”. ― SoyaCincau
