Shazam is a music app that can help us recognize or remember a song we heard on the radio, at the club, in the elevator, at an office, in the mall or anywhere else. It can identify the name, album and artist of a song just by hearing it over your mobile device's microphone. Whenever you heard a song that you want to know Shazam can listen to any part of the song and tell you what is the name of the song and where to get it. Shazam has different versions for iPhone&iPod touch, Android, BlackBerry, Nokia, Windows Phone 7, iPad and other devices.
How it works
It is quite easy to use. You launch the app and tap the "tag" button at the top right of or the bottom left of the screen. Then hold your device close to the source of the song you would like to identified. Shazam will take a few seconds to analyze and match the part it listened and quickly give a feedback that what the song is or no match for the song.
After it recognize the song, it will provide the information of singer, album, genre, etc. You can directly download the song from iTunes. And also let you share the song with your friends via Facebook, Twitter, or Email. Another great feature is you can watch music videos, concerts and artist clips of the song on YouTube.
Shazam saved all your tags sorted by date, artist(A-Z), or title(A-Z) and also let you connect to your Facebook account to see what your friends are tagging and share what you are tagging instantly.
You can also discover new music in Shazam Charts.
Cost
Shazam has both free version and premium version. The premium version has no banner ads, and a LyricPlay feature which allow you to see the lyrics in time with the song you identified.
With the free version of Shazam, you can choose two different upgrading option:
1 Year Subscription to Shazam Encore for $4.99 with access to Unlimited Tagging* and Recommendations for the full life of your subscription.
Lifetime Subscription to Shazam Encore for $6.99 with access to exclusive features for the life of your device. In the future we will be implementing features that will enable you to transfer your purchase to a maximum of 5 devices.
PROS
It now has unlimited tagging for free version.
Shazam can used to recognize songs when you cannot access to the WiFi or 3G. It will listen to the song and save the tag as "Unsubmitted Tag" in your saved tags. Once you get access to Internet it will analyze what it heard and give you feedback.
It accurately and quickly identifies songs by sound.
Social media sharing
Friends tab that shows what your friends are listening to and the ability to comment
Notifications on new releases, new friends, tags and comments.
preview and buy tab on Itunes
CONS
It works better in quieter environments without noise. The closer you put the microphone to the sound, the more accurate it will recognize.
Less accurate with music from small or independent bands.
remixes are searched and found as the original song.
Lots of banner ads in free version.
It sometimes has a wrong album cover for the song.
What's New:
Latest features (v5.5):
All new Tagging screen that responds to the sounds around you
Tagging without coverage? Shazam now matches automatically when you next have a connection
Search My Tags – scroll up to the top of the My Tags to search for artists, titles, tag dates and tag locations
Share tags on Google+
For VoiceOver users, Shazam now has a “magic tap”: start tagging immediately with a two-finger double-tap from anywhere in the app
Shazam 5.0 feature: (Encore)
Lightning fast tagging and recognition
Instant listening on start-up
Start-up time over a second quicker
Editable tweets – as requested! (iOS5)
Smoother, more responsive navigation and scrolling
Shazam Friends feed works even faster
Improved sync on LyricPlay - see streaming lyrics in time to the music
New language support: Korean and Brazilian Portuguese
In Addition Shazam Encore features:
No advertising banners
Links to Spotify (Spotify territories only, currently: AT, BE, CH, DE, DK, ES, FR, NL, NO, FI, SE, UK, US)
Create Pandora Station from your tag (US only)
(SHAZAM)RED has the same features as Shazam Encore, plus:
20% of the purchase price is contributed to HIV and AIDS programs in Africa.