Apple has announced on its website Worldwide Developers Conference in June that it would release iOS 18 this fall. The company also said it will bring new features to your iPhone, such as the ability to At home And lock screenBut then Apple iOS 17.4 In March, the tech giant made Apple Podcasts more accessible to more people by introducing podcast transcriptions directly within the app.
“The introduction of transcripts on Apple Podcasts builds on Apple’s commitment to making products and services accessible to everyone,” said Sarah Herrlinger, Apple’s senior director of global accessibility policy and initiatives. said in a statement“We’re proud to make transcripts accessible to everyone, adding an extra layer of accessibility to the Podcasts experience.”
Here are podcast transcripts and what you need to know about the feature.
Read more: An expert’s guide to all the features in the iOS 18 betas
Finding a Podcast Transcript
Here’s how to enable transcripts so you can read along as your podcast plays in real time.
1. Open your Podcast app.
2. Start playing a podcast.
3. Tap the media player at the bottom of your screen.
4. Tap the icon at the bottom left of the screen. It looks like a speech bubble with quotation marks in it.
While listening to a podcast, you can tap this button to view the transcript and listen along immediately.
Now you can follow along with the transcript as the podcast plays. You can also scroll through the transcript as it plays, but be careful. Tapping on a word or phrase while scrolling will either fast-forward or rewind your podcast to that point. There is also a Search Query at the bottom of your screen, which you can tap to search for words or phrases anywhere in the podcast.
Once this feature is enabled, it will also carry over to other podcasts you listen to. So in the future, when you open the media player while listening to a podcast, you will automatically see the transcript. To turn off the transcript in this view, however, tap on the podcast artwork in the upper left corner of your screen and the feature will turn off.
If you want to read a transcript like an article, but don’t want to or can’t listen to the podcast, here’s how.
1. Open your Podcast application
2. below Next oneTap the three dots in the corner of a podcast’s title card.
3. Crane View transcript.
From here you can read the transcript at your own pace. If you tap the magnifying glass in the upper right corner of your screen, you can also search for words and phrases from the Podcasts.
How good are Apple Podcast’s transcriptions?
Although I only listened to podcasts in English, the transcriptions are quite good. The transcript ignores most instances of a host or guest stuttering, which is nice, and in my experience, homonyms weren’t confused. The feature also transcribed English-based accents and dialects well.
Some proper nouns may be misspelled in your podcast transcript.
Most proper nouns, such as names and companies, are capitalized and spelled correctly. There were cases where names, such as Yvette Pierpaoli, or diseases, such as the bubonic plague, were misspelled in episodes of Cool people doing cool things And Scammer Goddessrespectively.
The biggest problem I have with transcripts is that there is no indicator of who is saying what at any given time. When someone else starts talking, the transcript skips a line, but it doesn’t tell you who is speaking. If you are relying on a podcast transcript and there are two or more speakers, it can be difficult to follow who is saying what. If there are three or more guests talking at once, good luck figuring out who is speaking in real time.
The search function is a nice addition. I used the search function a few times to find quotes and book titles instead of skipping through the podcast and hoping to hear them again.
In general, the transcripts are spelled correctly and are easy to search. However, it would be nice if the transcript indicated who is speaking.
For more on iOS 17, here’s what could be in iOS 17.6 and our iOS 17 cheat sheet. You can also check out what you need to know about iOS 18 so far and our iOS 18 cheat sheet.
