Twitter is in turmoil, with a big part of staff and contractors laid off following Elon Musk’s record purchase of the social network. It looks like the remaining team is tasked with shipping new features fast, as the latest Twitter for Android version offers a glimpse at some new features that are currently being prepared. Among them is continued work on end-to-end encrypted chats, which Twitter first started looking into in 2018.

After initial code for end-to-end encrypted chats showed up in 2018, things got increasingly quiet surrounding the feature, and it appeared as though Twitter abandoned the feature. Now, in 2022, app sleuth Jane Manchun Wong spotted new strings within the Twitter Android app that suggest that the company is working on the feature again. In fact, new Twitter owner and CEO Elon Musk replied to Wong’s finding, sending nothing but a wink emoji. This suggests that the feature might actually manifest sooner rather than later.

Before Elon Musk went through with his Twitter purchase, he made clear that he would like to add end-to-end encryption to chats on the platform (via CNN).

If Twitter adds end-to-end encryption to its chats, communication on the platform could rise to the same level of security as WhatsApp and Signal. Both messaging platforms offer end-to-end encryption by default, allowing no one but conversation partners to decipher messages—not even its own servers. WhatsApp collects and stores more metadata on when messages were sent and who received them than Signal, though.

In contrast to end-to-end encrypted messages, which don’t have a timeline yet, the revamped Twitter Blue subscription Elon Musk is planning has a due date. The company says that it will be relaunched on November 29, after it had to be discontinued due to the onset of impersonations, spam, and scam on the platform following the verification of everyone willing to pay $8.

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In further changes, the most recent Alpha version of Twitter has also added a themed icon for Android 13. You can download this version of Twitter on APK Mirror.

If you'd rather not be a part of the social network anymore given the recent changes, here's how to delete your Twitter account for good.