How You Can Listen to Podcasts When You’re Hard of Hearing

The most popular podcast platforms, Apple and Spotify, are among those making transcripts more accessible.

Apple Podcasts. A little more than a year ago, Apple introduced transcripts for the Apple Podcasts app that let people read full-text displays as well as search episodes for words and phrases. If you can hear well enough to listen, you can tap words in the transcript you may have missed and resume listening to an episode you stopped.

As the podcast plays, words are highlighted in the text to help you follow along. If you’re completely deaf, you can access transcripts without having to press play.

The font and color contrasts in Apple’s transcripts are designed to make the text easier to consume, the company says. Transcripts through Apple Podcasts become available shortly after a podcast episode publishes. Apple has transcribed more than 100 million episodes across 13 languages, including previously published episodes.

Summon a transcript by tapping an icon that resembles quotation marks in a small box.

Spotify. Though still in testing and not available on all its podcasts, Swedish streaming app Spotify says it has live transcripts across millions of episodes on iOS and Android devices. Creators can choose to opt out of having a transcript for their shows.

As with Apple’s transcripts, you can follow along as the words are spoken. While video podcasts are getting more popular on Spotify, most videos are not yet displaying subtitles, though Spotify is testing the idea on a limited number of episodes.

Spotify users can access transcripts where available by either tapping Episode Transcript on an episode page, or by scrolling down on a Now Playing View and tapping a Read Along card to follow along full screen.

Other podcasting apps that provide transcripts include iHeartRadio, Metacast and Snipd.

Complete accuracy is not guaranteed

Transcripts for a podcast episode may be delayed on some apps. And not all are perfectly accurate.

iHeart serves up a disclaimer: “Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.”

But Christy Gavitt says compared to seven or eight years ago, AI is improving the accuracy.

“I’m skeptical about AI in many ways,” says the Fairfax, Virginia, health consultant who wears a hearing aid. “But when it comes to transcripts, I think it’s the best thing since cherry pie.”

Some hearing aids will pipe audio directly to your ear

If you have compatible hearing aids and cochlear implants, you can stream audio from your Android and iOS phones and tablets or your Apple, ChromeOS or Windows computers.

Apple says nearly 200 “Made for iPhone (MFi) hearing devices from more than 40 manufacturers can stream content from and to Apple devices, which of course includes podcasts. Hearing aids are paired via Bluetooth and set up on the phone by visiting ⚙️ Settings | Accessibility | Hearing.

Android devices aren’t uniform like Apple’s but also make nice with hearing aids. On a Google Pixel, for example, start by tapping ⚙️ Settings | Accessibility | Hearing devices.

Hearing aids fall into two broad categories.

Traditional hearing aids are typically the most expensive, require a prescription from an audiologist or other hearing professional and are aimed at people with severe hearing loss. They can cost a few thousand dollars.

OTC or over-the-counter hearing aids don’t require a prescription and are generally much cheaper. They’re targeted at people with mild to moderate hearing loss.

To address the stigma some people may feel wearing a hearing aid in public, we’re beginning to see the technology masked behind some unique form factors.

Other devices. Apple’s AirPods Pro 2 earbuds can be transformed into an OTC hearing if mild or moderate hearing loss is detected when you take a hearing test through an iPhone or iPad. The recently-launched Nuance Audio eyeglasses capture sound through an array of microphones hidden inside the frame’s temples.

Explore your smartphone’s accessibility tools

I also recommend exploring the free suite of tools related to hearing inside the accessibility settings on your smartphone. A few to check out:

Generate captions. When enabled, the Live Captions feature on iPhone 11 and later, and Live Caption on many Android smartphones, detect speech and automatically generates captions.

By enabling the related Expressive captions tool on Android, you can add emotion to better gauge the tone of what is being said. The feature adds sound labels to Live Captions for things like laughter, audio and music.

To take in a podcast that’s not on your phone but instead on another device, the Live Transcribe accessibility feature on Android displays speech on the phone screen that’s emanating from that other device.

Enable Mono Audio. If your hearing loss is confined to one ear, both iOS and Android devices let you turn on a Mono Audio setting. It combines the left and right channels to have the content delivered to both ears the same, eliminating the effects of a stereo or surround-sound recording.

Bonus tip: Follow subtitles to learn a language

If you’re trying to learn a foreign language, one way to improve your skills is to watch a movie or TV show with subtitles.

The country’s largest streaming provider, Netflix, has just announced you can choose from more than 30 languages for subtitles or dubbing of any show on the service. Nearly a third of all viewing on the platform comes from shows and films not in English.

Other services, such as Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, Disney+ and Hulu, have subtitles or dubbing available in several languages, but not for all offerings. Spanish is the second-most-spoken language in the U.S. after English. The services may ask you to change your primary language in the app’s settings.