How to Boost Voice in Apple Podcasts in IOS 26
Apple Podcasts is one of the best podcast apps for iPhone , offering unique features like automatic transcription. However, I’ve never used it as my primary podcast player until now. That’s because it lacked two features I really wanted: automatic playback speed adjustment and voice volume boost. Luckily, Apple is adding one of these features in iOS 26 .
The Podcasts app is getting a new feature called Enhance Dialogue that makes it easier to listen to podcast hosts (and the guests who may be on them). This feature is great for listening to podcasts that weren’t recorded in professional studios. Quite often, guests on the show don’t have a good microphone, or parts of the podcast may have been recorded outdoors where it’s a little difficult to hear people’s voices clearly. That’s where features like Enhance Dialogue come into play. Popular podcast apps like Overcast , Pocket Casts , and Castro have had this feature for years, and it’s great to see Apple finally catching up with the competition. Here’s how to try Enhance Dialogue in Apple Podcasts and how it compares to similar features in competing apps.
How to Turn on Enhanced Dialogue in Apple Podcasts
Enabling Enhance Dialogue is fairly simple, but it’s in an odd place. Start playing any podcast episode, then tap the mini-player at the bottom of the screen to expand it. In full-screen podcast viewing, you’ll see a playback speed button (1x by default) in the left corner of the screen, above the volume slider. Tap the playback speed button and select Enhance Dialogue from the pop-up menu. Don’t ask why you’re controlling volume in the speed section.
Once enabled, this feature will work across all your Apple Podcasts podcasts. If you turn it off for one podcast, it will be turned off for all your other podcasts. At the time of writing, there’s no way to turn it on for specific podcasts, so be sure to set it up for your next podcast before you stop listening to the current one.
As for how it works, I tried it with a few of my favorite podcasts and noticed only a subtle difference. In comparison, Overcast’s Voice Boost does a much better job of ensuring everyone is equally audible.
One podcast I tried Enhance Dialogue with , The Brazilian Shirt Name Podcast , has a few episodes where the host and guests are at different volume levels, making it hard to understand what some people are saying. When I listened to the episode on Overcast, I barely noticed the difference in volume, but even with Enhance Dialogue turned on, the episodes I listened to on Apple Podcasts were harder to follow.
Some of these shortcomings can be forgiven, though, since I tested this on iOS 26 Developer Beta 6, which is a preview version and is only a few weeks away from the final release. A lot can change before iOS 26 is released in September, and I hope this feature is better by then.
At the same time, I hope that a “silence trim” feature will appear in the future.