Latest Overcast Beta Adds support for transcripts

In an exciting development for podcast fiends like yours truly, Marco Arment’s Overcast player soon will be getting support for transcripts of episodes. The announcement of the functionality was made earlier this week in the app’s Reddit, with Arment noting it’s currently a TestFlight beta and is “the first phase” of the work.

The functionality will support “most podcasts,” according to Arment’s post, with users able to swipe on the show artwork to access the text. Moreover, he noted there’s also support for live scrolling, a “tap to seek” feature, as well as music detection. Moreover, as Zac Hall reports for 9to5 Mac, Overcast’s transcripts will apply even to privatized podcast feeds—feeds like Arment’s venerable Accidental Tech Podcast members feed.

(Note to self: Absolutely resubscribe to ATP membership posthaste.)

Overcast has a special place in my heart, as has Arment himself. I’ve interviewed him about Overcast and accessibility in the past, and was part of the first beta-testing group prior to its 2014 debut. More broadly, Arment’s long been an ardent supporter of supporting disability inclusion, in principle and in practice, and I’ve shot the breeze with him several times over the years at Apple events like WWDC. He also played a seminal role in easing my transition into tech journalism in 2013, as it was he who green-lighted my first-ever byline for his Overcast predecessor in The Magazine. Nonetheless, I switched to Apple Podcasts once it gained support for transcripts because it was such as great accessibility feature that gave an audio-centric medium a bimodal dimensionality, sensory-wise. As I wrote on Mastodon earlier today, that Arment is (finally) adding transcripts to Overcast is going to woo me back to the app.

Arment also noted in his announcement post the impending transcripts will provide “the foundation of lots of great feature ideas” which include things like search, AI-powered analysis, and—in another nod to accessibility—clip-sharing with captions.

“For now, I can’t wait to get transcripts in everyone’s hands,” he said.