Apple is adding automatic, searchable transcripts to all podcast episodes. The catch? It's only available to users of Apple's own Podcasts app.
NEW Apple Podcasts Transcription Feature with iOS 17.4
The new feature, coming in iOS 17.4, will automatically transcribe all episodes submitted to Apple’s podcast catalog, as long as they’re in English, Spanish, German, or French. New episodes will be transcribed and indexed immediately, with episodes from the back catalog added as they’re processed. Ubiquitous, accurate, searchable transcriptions of podcasts are a huge win for accessibility and knowledge sharing, but unfortunately Apple’s approach is typical of current platforms, which prefer to lock up user-generated data for competitive advantage rather than share it on the open web for all to enjoy.
“The practice of isolating user-generated content behind members’ walls hinders the democratization of information and inhibits the ability for collaborative knowledge sharing,” Mohammed Mukhtar, the founder of PocketAI and a networking expert, told Lifewire via email. “When platforms like Apple restrict access to automated podcast transcriptions, it limits the discoverability of valuable content. Opening up this data to indexing and search engines would significantly improve the accessibility of information, making it more inclusive and useful to a wider audience.”
Apple’s new tools automatically transcribe the audio from a podcast and make it available in the Podcast app. Listeners can read the text, search, and tap the results to play the audio it’s associated with. It’s hard to imagine a better integration.
