Podcast transcription: Apple has been working on this since 2018
Since iOS 17.4, Apple's Podcasts app has been able to display transcripts of audio shows. The feature has been optimized for a long time - a very long time.
Transkript in Apple Podcasts.
(Image: Apple)
Since the introduction of iOS 17.4 in March, Apple's official Podcasts app has come with a useful feature: it now delivers automatically generated transcripts that can even be searched. Anyone looking for a specific point in an audio program or not wanting to listen through the entire program will benefit greatly from this - as will people with hearing impairments, who can access a lot of new content without any additional aids. The "Podcasts Transcription" feature, which actually sounds rather simple, has a surprisingly long background story. As the British Guardian newspaper revealed at the weekend, Apple has been working on it since 2018- a good six years.
German among the supported languages
The transcription of podcasts in Apple's app is currently available in English, German, French and Spanish. According to Apple, the transcripts can be accessed in "over 170 countries and regions". Gradually, content in the archive will also be transcribed and not just new shows. Podcasters can also transfer speaker names via VTT files. While a podcast is running, the transcript shows the respective position in the text, similar to Amazon's Whispersync.
According to Apple's Head of Podcasts Ben Cave, the path to the current function began six years ago. Back then, the aim was to create an index of existing podcasts to make them more searchable. However, Apple was not satisfied with the function for long enough to make it directly accessible to users of the Podcasts app.
Functions from Apple Music and Apple Books
They have high standards of accuracy. Only advances in other areas of accessibility made automatic transcription possible. "In this case, we've taken the best of what we've learned from reading in Apple Books and lyrics in Apple Music," Cave's colleague Sarah Herrlinger, who heads up Podcasts Policy, told the Guardian. Apple podcast transcripts now adopt the time-synchronized word-for-word highlighting from Apple Music's lyrics feature and use the fonts and high-contrast color schemes from Apple Books.
Apple is also implementing the feature for as many podcasts as possible. "It wouldn't be appropriate to arbitrarily limit the number of shows that get the feature," says Podcasts boss Cave. Apple believes that this is necessary for accessibility reasons alone. "Transcriptions should be available for anything [users] want to interact with."
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