Filed under: App Store
Shazam for the iPhone
Song Identification is very near to my heart. For a while, I tried resurrecting my "Listen.app" iPhone utility but a GraceNote license was out of reach (about the price of a typical condo) and early talks with Shazam (via Tapulous) never went anywhere. So I was absolutely gobsmacked when today I found that Shazam had gone ahead and released a version of its Music Identification Software for the iPhone.
You hold it up to record a few seconds and Shazam identifies the music. The software is beautifully designed and a joy to use. You can save your tag history and buy music you like directly from iTunes as well as share the music info with friends via email.
Kudos to Shazam for releasing such a beautiful application. Although it's currently free, it will require a service plan with a monthly cost. Going by other countries, expect the service to run about $5 to $10 per month.
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
thezonie said 4:50PM on 7-10-2008
This was one of the first apps I tried, and it works wonderfully. :)
Reply
apeguero said 4:52PM on 7-10-2008
See? This is something Apple should provide free of charge as an iTunes tool to aid us iTunes customers to properly identify a song that's in our heads. A monthly charge for this? No. Sorry.
Reply
apeguero said 4:54PM on 7-10-2008
Sorry people I have to reply to my own post but I hit send to soon. I can't justify paying a monthly charge for something that will help me identify a song I would have to pay for in iTunes. I say Apple should provide it as a tool in iTunes because it would help us id the songs we want to buy.
I can justify a selling price of like $5 or $10 but a monthly charge?
aaron Alexander said 5:03PM on 7-10-2008
well, apple prob already has licensing deals worked out so they could prob do this very easily.
Tom Castle said 4:53PM on 7-10-2008
Smart concept - but how many people are going to sign up for a frigging monthly subscription for this?!?! It reminds me of Iridium in some ways - technologically impressive, but cretinously dumb marketing strategy. Um, no.
Reply
Costitec said 5:00PM on 7-10-2008
True! I lost a lot of money with Iridium so I know what you mean
ekinnee said 4:57PM on 7-10-2008
Testing it with "chick music" are we?
Reply
DennisQ said 5:10PM on 7-10-2008
No way they'll get subscribers. Just not that frequent of a used app. I wouldn't be surprised if they eventually get by with simply taking the 5% commission on itunes song sales if they link directly to the itunes songs and can enable instant gratification on the mobile itunes store.
Reply
Tom Z said 5:26PM on 7-10-2008
I couldn't agree more. There's no way I would pay for a subscription for an infrequently used app like this. However, I would gladly pay a nominal surcharge on music I purchase that this app helped me identify. A direct link from the app to the Mobile iTunes Store would be needed for this to work though.
Lee said 5:14PM on 7-10-2008
Shazam charges £1 a time here in the UK for this service and it's mainly used in pubs on a Friday night to answer arguments about who is being played... I've never used it at £1 and for a monthly fee they can sod off to !
They need to talk to Apple about getting a referral fee for every track sold. That's the way to fund this any other model is going to fail miserably.
Free App = 1000's of users and referral fees . $5 a month and you can kiss that all goodbye.
Also worth noting that while this will work over 3G you can't by music over 3G still.
Reply
thezonie said 5:23PM on 7-10-2008
That's funny, I thought the "available for a limited time for free" meant that eventually they would charge a flat-fee for the download, so I'd better get it now. Oh well, it'll be fun while it lasts.
I guess it's also worth noting that midomi is another free app that does basically the same thing, just not as well. I'm not sure if they will adopt the same pricing model as Shazam sometime down the road.
Reply
SteveM said 5:43PM on 7-10-2008
Great app, but there's no way I'd pay a monthly $$ for it. I'd pay a small per-use charge - maybe .10 - but that's it. Seems like something that the online music sellers would do well to subsidize, as it would only help them.
Reply
Scott said 5:45PM on 7-10-2008
it's free
Reply
SirCrumpet said 5:47PM on 7-10-2008
Midomi ( http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=284972998&mt=8 ) appears to be another (free) option to do the same thing...
Reply
Derek Martin said 5:53PM on 7-10-2008
There's another app called midomi in the app store that seems to promise the same thing. I've installed both but haven't had a chance to test either.
Reply
elby said 6:22PM on 7-10-2008
$5 to $10 a month? Dream on! Watch your subscribers go from thousands to hundreds then dozens. $10 a year "maybe". (Big maybe)
Reply
dasilvetz said 6:23PM on 7-10-2008
Midomi is AWESOME!! and it's free!
Reply
Joey said 8:06PM on 7-10-2008
Why dont apple do this for free? They already have a database full of music (um... iTunes Store?)
Reply
Mike Morin said 2:25PM on 7-11-2008
For music that plays on the radio there is already an iPhone app that gives you now playing data, it is free and does not require that you hold your phone to a speaker. And, it gives you the last 5 songs so you do not have to do it while the song is playing (or you are driving in hazardous traffic). www.baktrax.mobi from you iPhone browser.
Reply
artaxerxes said 12:54PM on 7-14-2008
I wished it worked with the current iPod track on the iphone... rather than fading it out!
Reply