iOS 26: Fine-Tune Podcast Playback Speeds

[MacRumors]

With iOS 26 (currently in beta), Apple has finally caught up with rival podcast apps like Overcast by adding more fine-grained playback speed controls to the Podcasts app.

While competitors have long offered precise speed adjustments, Apple's rigid presets often left you caught between speeds that felt either too slow or uncomfortably fast.

In previous versions of iOS, Apple's stock Podcasts app provided only four fixed playback speed options: 1.25x, 1.5x, 1.75, and 2x. That's changed in iOS 26, and users now have a lot more flexibility.

Not only has Apple increased the range of playback speeds from 0.5x to 3x, the updated setting also allows you to adjust the speed in 0.1x increments, thanks to a new, more granular adjustment interface.

How to Adjust Podcast Playback Speed

Here's how to find your perfect playback speed.

1. Open the Podcasts app and start playing any show.
2. Open the fullscreen playback controls.
3. Tap the playback speed button (1x) in the bottom left.
4. Tap one of the preset playback speed options. Alternatively, drag your finger over the preset options to invoke a dial allowing for 0.1x incremental adjustments.

The expanded range opens up new possibilities: Super slow speeds may be useful for listening to podcasts where the host speaks too fast, as well as language learning or transcription work, whereas the upper speeds can be used to boost the pace of plodding narrators, or help you when you just want to skim-listen to a show.

Best of all, the new playback speed setting remembers your preference for each individual podcast, so you shouldn't need to adjust it every time you return to the same show.

Apple will roll out iOS 26 to compatible iPhones in September 2025.

Article Link: iOS 26: Fine-Tune Podcast Playback Speeds

 

[Total Respray]

I see Apple have not yet Sherlocked the one feature that keeps me on Overcast. Namely the ability to reduce the period of silence between people speaking. Truly excellent feature.

 

[LanaDelDeathRay]

Even better—You can also just drag your finger up/down directly on the playback speed button. Yw

 

[svish]

Good to see that this option is finally available. Much better to use now. Should have been there a long time ago. Remembering preference for each show is a bonus.

 

[anakin44011]

My Overcast app tells me that Smart Speed has saved me 226 hours beyond speed adjustments alone. I have a hard time getting my head around that statistic.

It has been the number one time-saver...until...

I learned how to download a bunch of podcasts that I like (but don't always love) via YouTube/Rumble - transcribe them with MacWhisper - then use an AI to give me summaries.

So many podcasts now produce hours and hours of content a week. There's only so much driving, dog-walking...or so many household chores that I need to do. This opened a whole new second tier of podcasts.

Now, any podcast that is merely informative, but not also entertaining (especially many long-form interviews), gets the summary treatment first so I can pick and choose which episodes to listen to via Overcast.

 

[c94733]

This is just another example of a feature they should have shipped ages ago through a normal app update. Instead we have to wait and pray simple features are included in upcoming OS updates; doesn't make any sense.

 

[brilliantthings]

Even better—You can also just drag your finger up/down directly on the playback speed button. Yw

Thanks so much!

 

[JosephAW]

Would be nice to have an option to just specify the amount of time to play the entire podcast, so a 45 minute podcast you could punch in 20 minutes and that’s exactly how long it would take.

 

[turbineseaplane]

I'm a 1x listener myself, but ...

I had to laugh at the icon in the article image

👻
Can barely see ya there "Podcasts"!

 

[ephemeral42]

Even better—You can also just drag your finger up/down directly on the playback speed button. Yw

LOL actually THANK YOU for this because I probably would've BARELY, very randomly discovered it in like a year's time!!! While trying to scrub a little stain off the screen protector in the area of that playback speed selector while having the app open and listening to a podcast. 😆🥲

The addition of the scrubber (or whatever the term is for it) is welcome in iOS 26; but minus points for UI/UX design on that one! Am I the only one that feels that way? Like I randomly discovered through a "butt swipe" that you can increment the speed through a horizontal scroll; but the implementation still has room for improvement! The first time I did it I didn't even know what the outcome of the action was; because visually the change happens, you feel the haptic response yet you don't see it in the moment, since it updates the indicator - which is UNDER your finger (the touch target) as it touches the screen... You end up having to lift your finger up while still touching the screen to "peek" under.

And I don't even think it has anything to do with being left/right handed; I can see how the approach is a bit faulty if you've got chunkier fingers as well/a big hand.

 

[Schtibbie]

When will they add a damn REPEAT option? Seriously. How hard is that, Apple?

 

[ericg301]

Every year I retry the native podcast app (compared to Pocket Casts, my daily driver), and every year I am still flummoxed by UP NEXT and how it differs from the queue. I just want the default screen to open on the latest episodes, in order, that I can add to the queue.

 

[brilliantthings]

Am I the only one that feels that way? Like I randomly discovered through a "butt swipe" that you can increment the speed through a horizontal scroll; but the implementation still has room for improvement! The first time I did it I didn't even know what the outcome of the action was; because visually the change happens, you feel the haptic response yet you don't see it in the moment, since it updates the indicator - which is UNDER your finger (the touch target) as it touches the screen... You end up having to lift your finger up while still touching the screen to "peek" under.

Yes! It's such appalling design.

 

[nutmac]

I see Apple have not yet Sherlocked the one feature that keeps me on Overcast. Namely the ability to reduce the period of silence between people speaking. Truly excellent feature.

That and also automatic volume (voice boost). I use Overcast over Apple's for these two features alone.

 

[d-klumpp]

If this were April 1 I'd have thought this was a joke. I guess in this have-it-your-way era we don't even tolerate natural speech. Another feature I will never use, despite the engineering effort expended.

 

[i007]

Every year I retry the native podcast app (compared to Pocket Casts, my daily driver), and every year I am still flummoxed by UP NEXT and how it differs from the queue. I just want the default screen to open on the latest episodes, in order, that I can add to the queue.

Same. The queue on Pocketcast seems to be the only correctly implemented queue across all podcast apps. Also, I don't realize how much I use the trim silence feature until I don't have it.

 

[4tune8chance]

With iOS 26 (currently in beta), Apple has finally caught up with rival podcast apps like Overcast by adding more fine-grained playback speed controls to the Podcasts app.

While competitors have long offered precise speed adjustments, Apple's rigid presets often left you caught between speeds that felt either too slow or uncomfortably fast.

In previous versions of iOS, Apple's stock Podcasts app provided only four fixed playback speed options: 1.25x, 1.5x, 1.75, and 2x. That's changed in iOS 26, and users now have a lot more flexibility.

Not only has Apple increased the range of playback speeds from 0.5x to 3x, the updated setting also allows you to adjust the speed in 0.1x increments, thanks to a new, more granular adjustment interface.

How to Adjust Podcast Playback Speed

Here's how to find your perfect playback speed.

1. Open the Podcasts app and start playing any show.
   
2. Open the fullscreen playback controls.
   
3. Tap the playback speed button (1x) in the bottom left.
   
4. Tap one of the preset playback speed options. Alternatively, drag your finger over the preset options to invoke a dial allowing for 0.1x incremental adjustments.

The expanded range opens up new possibilities: Super slow speeds may be useful for listening to podcasts where the host speaks too fast, as well as language learning or transcription work, whereas the upper speeds can be used to boost the pace of plodding narrators, or help you when you just want to skim-listen to a show.

Best of all, the new playback speed setting remembers your preference for each individual podcast, so you shouldn't need to adjust it every time you return to the same show.

Apple will roll out iOS 26 to compatible iPhones in September 2025.

Article Link: iOS 26: Fine-Tune Podcast Playback Speeds

Interesting feature that I didn’t know existed. Perhaps I’ll wait for the ‘replace voice of Trump with that of Donald Duck’.