Readable Podcasts is a new interface that lets you highlight podcasts for the first time. Easily navigate podcasts with AI chapter summaries and highlight with your AirPods to retain more of what you listen to.
Hi Product Hunt!
I'm Ben, the cofounder of Matter. Today we're thrilled to launch Readable Podcasts, a new interface that lets you highlight podcasts for the first time.
Podcasts are exploding in popularity because they’re a unique source of practical knowledge. But while audio is rich and expressive, it’s not great for recall. Unlike text, audio can’t be highlighted, copied, saved, or shared. Nor can it be searched, skimmed, referenced, or reviewed. Thus, a growing body of knowledge is “trapped” in podcast audio, unable to be fully exploited by learners.
Readable Podcasts solves this problem by providing complete transcripts alongside every podcast episode. The audio and text are kept in sync, so you can seamlessly switch from listening to reading and vice versa.
When you hear an interesting idea, you can double-tap your headphones to highlight the accompanying text. Or, you can open your phone to interact with the podcast in its “article” form, using Matter’s reader interface to highlight, take notes, and share quotes.
To try Readable Podcasts, download Matter from the iOS App Store. Then, save an episode to Matter from your current podcast app using the share extension. The episode will appear in your Matter Queue with its transcript.
Note that Matter is a complement — not a replacement — for your current podcast app. You can still use Spotify, Overcast, Apple Podcasts, or your player of choice to receive and listen to new episodes. When there’s an episode you want to go deeper on, simply save it to Matter and listen there as a Readable Podcast.
We're excited to hear what you think!
As a long-time user of Descript for transcribing my podcast subscriptions, and having explored every transcription-supported Podcast Client like Airr and Snipd, discovering Matter Readable Podcasts has been a revelation. Its intuitive and uncluttered interface, coupled with the essential features, makes for an extremely user-friendly experience. You simply add a podcast and instantly receive a comprehensive transcript that is searchable, scrollable, and highlightable. Matter Readable Podcasts delivers exactly what I’ve been looking for. Kudos to the Matter team!
Phenomenal. Other apps are atrocious at inferring what you're trying to highlight with Airpods. Matter is typically spot-on. Others you need to go and edit constantly which involves clicking through 6+ screens. Matter usually don't need to edit and if you do it's a single screen.
Exciting addition. Will we be able to subscribe to podcasts? Or is it on a one-by-one basis I need to add them to Matter?
As someone with ADHD, and someone who also loves podcasts but doesn't have enough time to sit and listen to hours of audio, especially while working, Readable Podcasts is a godsend. It's really a killer feature for Matter that makes it easily one of the best apps I've used. Everyone should try out this great new feature!
I've tried other "highlighting podcast transcripts" apps before, the experience was never great. When Matter rolled it out, I was excited to try it. It actually works, and works really well! Game changer for podcasts.
Congrats on the launch Ben and team! I love how seamless it is to quickly receive a podcast from Spotify and read, highlight, and search on Matter. Great work on the slick UI too.
The attention to detail and thoughtfulness this team has is incredible. Improvements to their products always feel intentional and polished while striking the right balance between simplicity and functionality. I love it. Every time Ben drops an update it kind of feels like Christmas a lil bit.
Moved from Pocket to Matter about a year and a half ago, and never looked back. Highly recommend!
Finally jumped on the Readable Podcasts bandwagon yesterday after my reading list got too long and I tried getting ChatGPT to read an article to me. The article was so long that it couldn't 😅
Came to Matter next and was up and running in a few minutes. Really slick onboarding + product. Glad to be a paying member. Congrats to you and the team on launching, @benspringwater!
Huge fan of Matter. One of my favourite products at the moment, and readable podcasts is just another incredible addition to it.
The heart of the Matter: the UX is disarmingly simple, the price might make you pause, but with this new podcast feature, we might be looking at the killer app for readers. The flip side, the thing most developers miss, is that creators aren't just wanting to read, listen, or watch, we're collecting ideas and inspiration - adding our two cents - and then sharing the mixtape. Adding the ability to sync highlights with Notion (in beta) and other note apps is a great step. Now to optimize that workflow!
I've been using Matter for a really long time. This is a really convenient tool. Not one of a kind, but definitely the best among many different options I've tested. The recent updates make it especially useful. I can imagine many different scenarios of usage with readable podcasts but the one I find essential for myself is language learning.
Long-time fan and subscriber to the Matter product. The addition of Readable Podcasts is another great addition to an already amazing product. I love the attention to detail, yet maintaining simplicity and not interfering with the core functionality of the product. Well done team!
About Readable Podcasts on Product Hunt
“Highlight podcasts for the first time.”
Readable Podcasts launched on Product Hunt on September 28th, 2023 and earned 155 upvotes and 30 comments, placing #19 on the daily leaderboard. Readable Podcasts is a new interface that lets you highlight podcasts for the first time. Easily navigate podcasts with AI chapter summaries and highlight with your AirPods to retain more of what you listen to.
Readable Podcasts was featured in Productivity (649.7k followers), User Experience (364.7k followers) and Artificial Intelligence (466.2k followers) on Product Hunt. Together, these topics include over 243.1k products, making this a competitive space to launch in.
Who hunted Readable Podcasts?
Readable Podcasts was hunted by Ben Springwater. A “hunter” on Product Hunt is the community member who submits a product to the platform — uploading the images, the link, and tagging the makers behind it. Hunters typically write the first comment explaining why a product is worth attention, and their followers are notified the moment they post. Around 79% of featured launches on Product Hunt are self-hunted by their makers, but a well-known hunter still acts as a signal of quality to the rest of the community. See the full all-time top hunters leaderboard to discover who is shaping the Product Hunt ecosystem.
Want to see how Readable Podcasts stacked up against nearby launches in real time? Check out the live launch dashboard for upvote speed charts, proximity comparisons, and more analytics.
Ben Springwater