Is there Live Transcribe for iPhone?

Google's Live Transcribe is an Android app, and we found no official version for iPhone. Google describes it as a way to join any conversation with instant speech-to-text captions on an Android phone ¹. Searches for "Live Transcribe for iPhone" return apps with similar names from other developers. Those apps are not made by Google, so check the developer name in the App Store before you install one.

The iPhone feature that does the same job is Live Captions. Apple says it helps you follow the audio in apps such as FaceTime and Podcasts, and also the live conversations around you ². In a video call in the FaceTime app, you can turn it on from the call controls ³. Live Captions is the closest match to Live Transcribe, but it is part of iOS, not a separate app, and it has its own limits, set out below.

Live Captions does the job, with three limits

Live Captions is the nearest iPhone answer, and it has three limits you should know before you rely on it.

Device. Apple says Live Captions is available on iPhone 11 or later ⁴. An older iPhone will not show the feature, so check your model in Settings before you plan around it.

Language and region. The same Apple statement says the feature is not available in all languages, countries or regions ⁴. If your language is missing, the feature will not help you, even on a recent iPhone.

Accuracy. Apple says the accuracy of Live Captions may vary and that it should not be relied on in high-risk or emergency situations ⁴. Treat the captions as an aid, not a record of what was said.

Turn on Live Captions in Settings

Apple's steps begin in the Settings app, under Accessibility ⁵. Once the feature is on, Apple's options let you change how the text looks: you tap Appearance in the Live Captions settings to change the text, size and colour of the captions ⁶.

1. Open the Settings app and tap Accessibility.
2. Find Live Captions and turn it on.
3. Tap Appearance to pick the text size and colour that you can read from where you sit.
4. Test it in the room where you will use it, with the person you will be talking to, before an important meeting.

Menu names can differ between iOS versions. Apple's page we read covers iOS 27 and iOS 26, so if your labels do not match, search Settings for "Live Captions".

On Android, the same job is done by Live Transcribe, and phones differ

If you want the Android version, you need Live Transcribe on an Android phone, and its availability depends on the phone. Google says that some features and availability vary by phone maker and by device, and that some features are not available in every country ⁷. Two Android phones on the same version can show different menus, so search your phone's settings for the feature name rather than following a fixed path.

Captions alone do not replace a human captioner

Captions help, but they do not give you everything in a conversation. The authors of a 2017 study report that even with accurate real-time text from human captioners, deaf and hard of hearing people receive 50 to 80 percent of the information, against 84 to 95 percent for hearing peers ⁸. The figure is cited from earlier research in that study's introduction, so it describes the gap rather than a measurement from the study itself.

For a lecture, a medical visit or any talk where a missed word matters, a human captioner is still the standard. Our guide to speech to text for deaf and hard of hearing people compares human captioning with the phone options, and CART captioning explains the human service in more detail.

What to do

• Use Live Captions on an iPhone 11 or later if you need text for conversations or FaceTime video calls, and check that your language is supported.
• Use Live Transcribe on an Android phone if your phone maker offers it, and search your settings for the feature name.
• Do not use either tool alone where the cost of a missed word is high. Ask for a human captioner or a written copy in advance.
• Ask about calls separately. Live Captions does not cover ordinary phone calls in Apple's documents, so read how to get captions on phone calls before you rely on it for a call.

For the terms behind these tools, see the glossary entry for Live Transcribe and the glossary entry for Live Captions. This question is part of our guide to Live Transcribe, Live Captions and Voice Control, and the wider set of phone tools is in dictation and voice to text on iPhone and Android. If you want the question of captioning people with hearing loss in more depth, see what is a captioned telephone and whether AI captioning is accurate enough for deaf people.