Podcast Transcripts Are Table Stakes

On the most recent episode of ATP (E683), Marco Arment talked about his journey implementing transcripts in Overcast. Very cool and interesting! Here is his conclusion regarding transcripts in podcasts:

It is extremely clear to me that this feature is table stakes, that all podcast apps need transcripts. Once you are used to navigating a podcast with transcripts, using seek forward and seek back buttons feels like you’re a dinosaur. So it is very obvious to me that podcast listening and podcast navigation require this. For any app that wants to be a serious podcast experience, a good listening experience, you need robust transcript features now.

This is how I’ve felt ever since I first experienced it in Apple Podcasts. The way you can follow along as the audio plays, or jump to a place in the episode by tapping a paragraph in the transcript, is just so convenient. It made me seriously consider using Apple Podcasts. And of course, I immediately tested the Overcast implementation.

A Feature That Truly Fits Me

It’s the kind of feature that fits how I use podcasts. Like chapters, it supports choice. It lets you cut through the noise and get straight to the topics that interest you.

Every now and then, I revisit an episode and take notes while listening. The way transcripts are implemented in Apple Podcasts and Overcast improves this significantly, since I don’t need to replay the audio multiple times to get a quote right.

A Feature to Switch Clients For?

The client that suits me best overall is Pocket Casts. I’m subscribed to Pocket Casts Plus, which happens to include transcripts. Pocket Casts transcripts are quite good. They allow search and copy. They even support Slovene. They don’t sync with audio though, making them useless for navigation.

Also, for the recent ATP episode they did not work at all. To get Marcos quote I used the Overcast beta. I had to pull the text from a screenshot. Not ideal, but at least it worked.

So why not just use Overcast? Overcast is a very full-featured podcast client. The way Marco implemented transcripts is promising. But Overcast is not designed for me. I’ve fully adopted the idea of a queue from Castro. I don’t commit to listening to every episode of a podcast. I pick and choose. Using Overcast like that is just too cumbersome. There are too many steps involved to add an episode to the queue and to navigate between the queue, a list of new episodes or search.

So I really hope Pocket Casts comes to share Marco’s sentiment that this is table stakes – not just having transcripts, but implementing them in a way that enables navigation.