Recently Shazam for iOS had a makeover, and things are a little bit different, easier to use, and updated to a more modern, clean feel.
What's changed in Shazam?
Ryan Christoffel, Mac Stories:
Gone are the traditional navigation tabs at the bottom of the screen; they have been replaced by a paginated layout where a swipe left or right is used to switch screens.
When you launch the app, you'll instantly land on the homepage, which is essentially a giant Shazam button. There are now only three app screens to navigate through:
- If you swipe to the left, you go to My Shazam
- If you swipe to the right, you go to the Discover page
- The middle page is the homepage/Shazam button
You can also use Auto Shazam, which lets the app keep listening to whatever music you're trying to identify even after you close it.
My Shazam hasn't changed much from before, but in an effort to consolidate the total number of pages in the app, Discover now includes the contents formerly found in Trending as well. A Chart Update card is included with your daily mix, plus you'll find a button at the top and bottom of your 10 daily updates that takes you straight to Trending.
What does Shazam do?
Shazam is an app that allows you to identify music with the press of a button. Say you're in a store and you hear an awesome song playing but you have no idea what it is and you're way too shy to ask the staff – pull out your iPhone, start up Shazam, and the app will tell you what's playing.
What else can Shazam do besides identify music?
- Preview songs with Apple Music and add them to Apple Music and Spotify playlists
- View music lyrics and YouTube videos for the songs you Shazam
- Auto Shazam can recognize songs in the background after you've left the app
- Shazam's Visual recognition gets you information on posters, magazines or books; you can use it anywhere you see the Shazam camera logo
- Visual recognition also works as a code reader for all QR codes
- Stay up-to-date about new singles, albums, and videos from the artists you follow
- You can follow artists to see what they're Shazaming
- Buy tickets to see your favorite artists in concert
... And so, so much more.
Why would I use it instead of Siri or alongside my other music services?
Shazam has a plethora of features that overlap with other popular music services, apps, and things like Siri, but it's the sheer volume, reach, and variety of features that make this app stand out so definitively from the rest.
Shazam has a little bit of everything for almost everyone: from the ability to connect to Apple Music or Spotify, the feature to turn on Auto Shazam so that the app is always finding new music for you, the chance to see what your friends are Shazamming and sharing your epic music discovering to Facebook, Twitter, or almost any other social media, and pretty much any other feature an innovative, music-centred app would think of.
So how does it integrate with Apple Music and Spotify?
If you find a song that's exclusive on Spotify or Apple Music and you have an account, you can tap the track and that will take you to the app where you can listen to the song in full.
If you do not have an Apple Music or Spotify account, you can only listen to a portion of the song that you've Shazam'd.
You can also connect your Shazam account to your Apple Music account.
What do you think of Shazam's new layout?
Are you a big fan of the changes Shazam has implemented, or do you think it's too similar to other apps and that the old format was fine?
Let us know what you think in the comments below!
