Apple is preparing a major upgrade to Apple Podcasts this spring, introducing an enhanced video experience designed to keep viewers inside its app rather than bouncing to YouTube or Spotify. The update adds seamless switching between watching and listening, support for horizontal viewing, and the ability to download video episodes for offline playback — all built on Apple’s HTTP Live Streaming technology for adaptive, reliable delivery.
What the New Apple Podcasts Video Experience Adds
The headline feature is continuity: listeners can move between audio and video without losing their place, whether they’re on a commute with the screen off or at home in landscape mode. HLS under the hood should help video adjust to network conditions smoothly, reducing buffering and keeping scrubbing responsive — two pain points that often push podcast fans to other platforms.
Offline downloads matter just as much. Video podcasts are increasingly produced like talk shows with multi-cam edits, on-screen graphics, and live demos. Letting users cache those episodes means they can take them on flights or in low-signal areas without sacrificing quality. The update will be available to test in betas for iOS 26.4, iPadOS 26.4, and visionOS 26.4 ahead of the broader spring launch.
Apple is also framing this as a creator-first shift. While the company hasn’t detailed all tooling changes yet, positioning video inside Apple Podcasts puts distribution, subscriptions, and audience analytics in one place, simplifying how shows program both audio-only and video-first formats.
Why Video Podcasts Matter Now for Audiences and Ads
Audience behavior has already tipped toward screens. Edison Research reports that 51% of the U.S. population has watched a video podcast, and 37% do so monthly. That’s not a niche; it’s mainstream viewing that increasingly looks like long-form YouTube, with hosts expecting viewers to catch reactions, product demos, and studio context that audio can’t fully convey.
Rivals have capitalized on the shift. YouTube disclosed more than 1 billion monthly viewers of podcast content, while Spotify says it hosts about 500,000 video podcasts and that nearly 400 million users have watched them. Even Netflix has experimented at the edges, partnering with audio companies like iHeartMedia and Spotify to surface podcast-style video programming on its service.
Put simply, creators follow the audience and advertisers follow attention. Video inventory often commands higher engagement and ad premiums, a trend reflected in the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s ongoing podcast revenue studies. For Apple, keeping that engagement native to Apple Podcasts could fortify its services flywheel and reduce leakage to video-first platforms.
Competitive Pressure And Creator Economics
Apple helped mainstream podcasting by adding shows to iTunes two decades ago, but it has ceded ground in video. This move is a correction. A richer viewing experience in Apple Podcasts tightens the link between discovery, consumption, and monetization, especially for creators using Apple Podcasts Subscriptions and channels to offer bonus episodes, early access, or ad-free feeds.
For production teams, the immediate benefit is format flexibility. Shows can lead with video while preserving a high-quality audio fallback in the same place. For audiences, it eliminates the friction of splitting habits across multiple apps — a common complaint from fans who listen on mobile but prefer to watch on tablets or desktops.
Apple’s Eddy Cue has characterized the upgrade as a milestone aimed at giving creators more control over how they build their businesses and making it easier for audiences to choose between listening and watching. That framing underscores Apple’s intent to be a primary home for premium, studio-grade podcast video rather than a secondary destination.
What to Watch as the Apple Podcasts Launch Nears
Three signs will indicate how impactful this becomes.
- Creator adoption: expect early traction from shows already producing full video, especially those juggling separate uploads to multiple platforms.
- Analytics and discovery: richer video metrics and better surfacing of video-first episodes in charts and recommendations would help creators justify the additional work.
- Device integration: the visionOS 26.4 beta hints at a lean-back video experience that could make long-form podcasts more comfortable on larger displays and head-worn devices.
If Apple nails playback reliability with HLS, minimizes app friction, and aligns video with subscriptions, it can credibly compete for the growing share of podcast consumption happening on screens. The spring rollout sets the stage; the real test will be whether Apple Podcasts can convert viewers who default to YouTube and keep them engaged inside Apple’s ecosystem.
