MacOS 27 Finally Gets Video Podcast Playback With Picture in Picture

Apple is bringing video podcast playback to Mac and Apple TV for the first time, bundled into the fall software releases under iOS 27 and its companion updates. The feature has existed on iPhone and iPad for a while, making the Mac and tvOS additions more of a catch-up than a launch.

The Mac update is the more practically useful of the two. Picture in Picture support means a video podcast can run in the corner while you work, and the update also pulls in transcripts, timed links, and chapters, features that iPadOS 27 users have had access to on mobile. The Mac has long been the odd platform out for Podcasts, and this closes most of that gap.

Apple TV Gets a Full Redesign

The tvOS app is being rebuilt from scratch rather than patched. It gets a sidebar navigation, creator artwork support, and video playback, which suggests the previous version was not so much an app as a placeholder. Whether people actually want to watch podcasts on a television in significant numbers is a separate question Apple is betting on with this investment.

The one cross-platform addition is a search-within-show tool, available on iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Vision Pro, as well as on the web at podcasts.apple.com. It lets users search episode titles and content directly from a show’s episode list rather than scrolling through back catalogs that can run into the hundreds. It is a small fix that should have existed years ago.

Apple Podcasts has been losing ground to Spotify on the video side, where Spotify has actively courted video creators since 2023. Looking back across macOS version history, podcast support on Mac has seen minimal investment for years, which makes the timing of this push less surprising given where the competitive pressure is coming from.