The transcripts in Apple Podcasts are searchable too.
A new report published this week bylined by 9to5 Mac’s Filipe Espósito says Apple Podcasts’ transcription feature, which debuted in iOS 17.4 earlier this year, has been enhanced with richer support for different languages. According to Esposito, transcripts in Apple Podcasts now are available in 11 languages: English, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Swedish. Notably, the Portuguese localization applies in both Brazil and Portugal.
Esposito noted Apple has publicly stated transcripts are made available to listeners “shortly after” episodes of a show are published to its feed.
As a longtime Overcast aficionado, I made the switch to using Apple’s first-party client once the company announced transcripts were coming to the app. As I wrote last week on Music Haptics, that Apple did the grunt work to add transcript support to Podcasts is not at all trivial. If anything, it ought to be shouted from the proverbial rooftops more often. Podcasts obviously are a hearing-based medium, which makes the format inherently exclusionary to people who have hearing loss or are deaf to some degree. Thus, the advent of transcripts in Apple Podcasts means podcasts immediately become accessible to legions of people for whom they were heretofore inaccessible. To wit, there are many in the Deaf and hard-of-hearing community who will only engage in podcasts, regardless of interest in the topic, if there’s a transcript to go with it.
That Apple’s Podcasts apps supports transcripts is a shining example of a situation where a single feature sways the vote over whether to use a certain piece of software. Although the nerdier corners of the Apple community rally around the aforementioned Overcast due to indie developer Marco Arment’s design sensibilities, not to mention his presence on the super-popular Accidental Tech Podcast—I’ve known Arment for years and know for a fact his commitment to making Overcast as accessible as possible to disabled people is unflinching—that Apple Podcasts has transcripts built-in is a legitimate reason to choose it over App Store alternatives—even ones as revered as Overcast has been.
My understanding is transcripts is limited to both the iOS and macOS apps. The web player, I’m reliably informed, doesn’t support transcripts at this time. One item on my WWDC25 wishlist for next summer is the introduction of a public Transcripts API for third-party developers. Call it TranscriptKit. Such a technology would enable developers like Arment to hook up Overcast to it and provide auto-generated transcripts to his customers. The notion isn’t far-fetched, as there already exists a Music Haptics API for developers to support in their own music-based apps.
Until and unless Apple announces a so-called “TranscriptKit” API, I’m inclined to stick with Apple Podcasts for the foreseeable future. The feature is too useful for me to forego, as even as a hearing person, it’s immensely helpful to check the transcript for misunderstandings or clarification on what was said during the show. It’s accessibility.
If you haven’t yet checked out transcripts, I highly recommend it.
