What’s New at Apple Podcasts (Winter 2024)
I had the opportunity to attend Apple Podcasts’ quarterly event yesterday, where they showcase everything going on with the app, the service, and how podcasters can leverage it to build a business.
Apple Podcasts is still the industry leader in podcasting, despite stiff competition. When they do something, it pushes the entire industry in that direction.
Luckily, it’s been moving things rapidly forward lately!
The new features are in iOS 17.4, which comes out this Spring (though you can install the public beta now). Here were the top takeaways.
Transcripts Take Center Stage
I reported last month on how Apple Podcasts is rolling out automatic transcript generation. We got a lot more insight at the event.
Transcripts will be for English, Spanish, French, and German podcasts to start, with more slated for release later. Creators have the flexibility to upload their own transcripts or edit autogenerated ones. This ensures content is both inclusive and accurate, provided your podcast host supports Transcripts. You can find that full list here.
A couple of interesting questions that came up during the Transcripts segment:
- If your podcast hosting provider doesn’t offer transcripts, you can reach out to Apple support to get things settled, in the event you want to fix a transcript
- Apple Podcasts doesn’t label speakers (which makes sense, as that always requires user input, even with speaker detection)
- You can opt-out of transcripts on a per episode basis
- Apple will go back transcribe the show’s back catalog — but that will take time.
All-in-all, I think this is a great thing for Apple, and podcasts in general. This feature not only boosts accessibility, but also enhances user engagement, since listeners can jump directly to audio segments of interest.
Channels, Search Enhancements, and Editorial Opportunities
Apple Podcasts has also redefined content discovery with improved search functionality. Channels, which have been around for a while, serve as branded landing pages for creators with multiple shows, streamlining content discovery and brand cohesion. They strongly recommend setting up a channel if you have more than one podcast.
The platform’s search enhancements and the addition of new categories further simplify finding relevant content for listeners:
We’ve also updated our categories list and elevated these nine sub- categories, mental health relationships, personal journals, documentary entrepreneurship, self- improvement books, parenting and language learning. These new categories have been added to our search tab in the app alongside our other main categories…
Podcasters interested in gaining more visibility should explore the Apple Podcasts Promotional Tool. This resource allows creators to pitch their shows directly to Apple’s editorial team, offering a chance to be featured and spark widespread conversation.
Grow Your Audience and Monetize Your Content
Understanding the importance of audience growth and monetization, Apple Podcasts provides extensive support for creators through partnerships and insights.
The new collaboration with Linkfire, for example, enables podcasters to create customizable landing pages and track engagement, helping to refine marketing strategies and grow listener bases:
With Linkfire you can create customizable landing pages and help listeners, discover your podcast recent episodes and everything that goes along with your brand, like merchandise social media channels, your newsletter and even tickets for live events.
Through the Apple and Linkfire partnership, you can see what links are driving listens plays, Follows and even subscriptions on Apple podcasts creators now have an opportunity to measure and optimize their marketing funnel in a way that hasn’t been possible before.
Moreover, Apple has shared resources on finding the ideal subscription strategy and insights to help launch and grow your subscription, highlighting the flexibility and potential of subscription models to convert listeners into paying subscribers.
I’ll be covering Subscriptions deeper in a future piece.
If you’re interested in learning more, you can:
- Check out the Apple Podcasts Creator Hub
- Install the iOS 17.4, which you can enable by going to Settings -> General -> Software Update, and selecting the Public Beta updates (be sure to backup your phone first).