The Podcasts App Now Has Transcripts

What actually is a huge change in the Podcasts app is the new ability to access transcripts. 

As you can probably guess, this feature shows you a transcript of the podcast episode you’re listening to in real time.

These transcripts work a lot like the Lyrics feature in Apple Music — even the button to bring them up is in the same place. You can also follow along with the words highlighted as they’re spoken and tap any sentence in the transcript to have the Podcasts app jump to that point in the episode. 

What’s even cooler is that you can also search for a specific word or sentence. That way, you don’t have to read the whole transcript to find the part you want to listen to.

Note that Apple is generating these transcripts on its servers rather than directly on your iPhone. This means that it may take a few hours before a newly released episode gets a transcript. They also may not be available on older episodes yet, as Apple has quite a back catalog to work through.