Shazam Encore Debuts for iPhone
Shazam is an app for the iPhone/ iPod Touch that is so cool it is one of the first things you show off to friends. Its function is simple, the technology behind it definitely not. What Shazam does is identify songs by listening to them. You hear a song on the radio in your car and you want to know what it is so you fire up Shazam on the iPhone. It listens for a few seconds and then tells you the song, the artist, and even offers you a one-click purchase of the song.
Shazam has been one of the best free apps for the iPhone since early in the iPhone product life. That changes with the introduction of Shazam Encore, a pay per view listen version that removes all limits from the free version. Specifically the free version of Shazam now limits you to 5 tags per month, and the Encore version offers unlimited tags. You’ll pay $4.99 at the App Store for that unlimited tagging in Shazam Encore, but you’ll also get these features:
- Improved speed performance: making it even quicker for users to tag tracks and learn more about their music.
- Music recommendations: users can discover other music similar to the track that’s been tagged to enhance their music collection and knowledge.
- Find what’s hot and popular: Shazam music charts generated by millions of other Shazamers can be accessed to help users keep up to date with the new tracks and players in the music scene.
- Search music: easily find music by artist, album or track from over 8 million songs.
- Drive and Tag: Shazam automatically enters into car mode when the iPhone is placed in an in-car dock to make it simple to discover what’s playing on the radio even when driving.
Note that existing Shazam owners still have unlimited tags, only new customers of the free version have the limit. The $4.99 fee for Shazam Encore is a one-time fee.
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I know that the media worships the iPhone, but don’t forget that Shazam also is downloadable on the Android Market for the G1, MyTouch 3g, HTC Hero, Motorola Cliq, Motorola Droid, Motorola Eris, Samsung Moment, and next week the Samsung Behold II. The iPhone is not the only game in town. You should probably get used to the idea that there is more to the smartphone app world than Apple.
Midomi is a similar app that I prefer bc you can hum tunes to it too! (Free last time I checked)
It is sooooo annoying when apps start off free and then scale back features and want u to pay to get them back. Forget that! They should have started charging up front. I’m deleting it from my phone.
This is the first premium app I’ve seen that includes advertising. What do you think about that?