Apple Live Captions

Name: Apple Live Captions
Author: Apple

by Apple

System-wide live captions on iOS, iPadOS, and macOS.

TL;DR

System-wide live captions on iOS, iPadOS, and macOS.

Best for apple users wanting free, on-device system-wide captioning for accessibility. Pricing: free · built into OS.

What it is

Live Captions is Apple's system-wide live captioning feature for iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Works in FaceTime, phone calls, and any audio playing on the device.

Best for: Apple users wanting free, on-device system-wide captioning for accessibility.
Watch out for: Available in supported languages only; on-device quality varies.

Install / use

support.apple.com — built in

Features

Speaker diarization	No
Word-level timestamps	No
Streaming / real-time	No
Languages supported	10
HIPAA eligible	No

Apple Live Captions vs Whipscribe

Feature	Apple Live Captions	Whipscribe
Category	Products	Transcription APIs
Pricing	free · built into OS	free beta
Speaker diarization	—	Yes
Word timestamps	—	Yes
Streaming	—	No
Languages	10	99
Platforms	iOS, iPadOS, macOS	Web, API, MCP

Alternatives to Apple Live Captions

Otter.ai

Meeting-bot transcription product for Zoom/Meet/Teams.

free / from $10/mo

Rev

Human + AI transcription, highest accuracy tier on the market.

AI from $0.25/min · human from $1.50/min

Descript

Audio/video editor that treats the transcript as the timeline — different product category.

free / from $12/mo

Whipscribe is a managed faster-whisper + whisperX service. If you want transcripts without running infrastructure, paste a URL or drop a file in the form below — you'll have a transcript in seconds.