Apple turns up the speed on Podcasts and adds a new emoji game to News

Apple’s next major software updates are getting a huge new feature for playback speed sickos like me: you’ll be able to listen to shows on the Podcasts app at as much as 3x speed, Apple notes in a press release about new services features. Previously, the maximum was 2x.

You can move to super speed from the podcast play screen in the Podcast app, but you’ll have to do a little bit of work to get there, based on my testing in the first iOS 26 developer beta. When you tap the playback speed button, a small popup appears that shows buttons for a few different speeds: 0.8, 1, 1.3, 1.5, 1.8, and 2. To more finely adjust playback speeds or access ones faster than 2x, you need to swipe on the buttons to get to a dial.

The popup also includes a new “Enhance Dialogue” option that you can tap on or off. “Using real-time audio processing and machine learning, users can turn on Enhance Dialogue to hear speech more clearly over background sounds,” according to Apple’s press release.

With Apple’s new suite of updates, Apple News Plus subscribers will get access to a new daily puzzle game called Emoji Game. “Emoji Game brings to life one of users’ favorite ways to communicate in a fun and engaging way, with players challenged to use emoji to complete three phrases, with the goal of solving the puzzle in as few moves as possible,” Apple says. I’m not an Apple News Plus subscriber, but I do love emoji and puzzle games, so I might have to check this out. 

In the press release, Apple also highlights some features that appeared in Monday’s WWDC 2025 keynote, including updated boarding passes with Live Activities and the ability to make a “Digital ID” in your Apple Wallet with a US passport.