Apple's New Transcription APIs Blow Past Whisper in Speed Tests

June 19, 2025 June 19, 2025

Apple's Lightning-Fast Speech-to-Text: Outpacing the Competition

Apple's New Speech-to-Text APIs: A Speed Revolution

Apple's latest iOS 26 and macOS Tahoe updates boast incredibly fast speech-to-text transcription capabilities, far exceeding the performance of rival technologies, including OpenAI's popular Whisper API. This significant speed improvement was revealed by John Voorhees of MacStories in recent beta testing.

Call recording and transcription in iOS 18.1

The Power Behind the Speed

Apple has long integrated native speech frameworks into its operating systems, powering live transcription features in apps like Notes and Voice Memos, and even extending to phone call transcription in iOS 18.1. The substantial speed boost in iOS 26 and macOS Tahoe stems from the introduction of a new SpeechAnalyzer class and SpeechTranscriber module. These new components are designed to efficiently handle speech processing requests.

Benchmarking Against the Competition

Voorhees conducted rigorous testing using a command-line tool called Yap (developed by his son, Finn) to analyze the performance of Apple's new APIs. The test involved a demanding 34-minute, 7GB video file. The results were striking.

Apple's new models processed this large file in a mere 45 seconds. This is a dramatic improvement over other leading transcription services. For instance, MacWhisper's Large V3 Turbo model, a strong contender, took 1 minute and 41 seconds to complete the same task – a full 55% slower than Apple's solution.

Other Whisper-based tools lagged even further behind. VidCap required 1 minute and 55 seconds, while MacWhisper's Large V2 model took a substantial 3 minutes and 55 seconds. Importantly, Voorhees noted that the transcription accuracy remained comparable across all tested models, indicating that Apple's speed gains didn't come at the cost of quality.

The Secret Sauce: On-Device Processing

The key to Apple's impressive speed advantage lies in its on-device processing approach. Unlike many competing services that rely on cloud-based processing, Apple's new APIs perform the transcription directly on the user's device. This eliminates the network latency and bandwidth limitations that often bottleneck cloud-based transcription services, leading to significant time savings.

The Real-World Impact

While the difference might seem relatively small when transcribing single, short files, the cumulative effect is substantial. The performance advantage becomes exponentially greater when dealing with multiple videos or exceptionally long audio recordings. For users who regularly generate subtitles, transcribe lectures, or process large volumes of audio data, this efficiency boost translates to significant time savings – potentially saving hours of processing time.

Imagine the impact on professionals like researchers, journalists, or educators who need to transcribe extensive interviews, lectures, or meetings. The speed improvement offered by Apple's new APIs could revolutionize their workflows, allowing them to complete tasks far more efficiently.

Cross-Platform Availability and Future Implications

Apple's new Speech framework components are currently available across a range of platforms in beta releases, including iPhones, iPads, Macs, and even the Vision Pro headset. This broad compatibility ensures that developers can integrate this powerful technology into a wide array of applications.

Voorhees anticipates that Apple's superior speed and potentially comparable quality will make its transcription technology the preferred choice for Mac transcription applications, potentially overshadowing even established solutions like Whisper in the near future. This shift could significantly alter the landscape of speech-to-text technology on Apple devices.

Conclusion

Apple's new speech-to-text APIs represent a significant advancement in the field of transcription technology. The remarkable speed improvements, achieved through on-device processing, offer a compelling alternative to cloud-based solutions. This technology's cross-platform availability and potential to surpass existing industry standards make it a game-changer for developers and users alike, promising to revolutionize how we interact with and process audio content.