Shazamfor iOS

Shazam was one of the first music identification apps to hit the market, and remains one of the best. When you pull up your app, Shazam will listen to a short snippet of the music that's playing around you and identify it based on an audio fingerprint. You're presented with the song's title and artist in a matter of seconds. You can also take advantage of a number of additional features that enhance your listening experience, like new music recommendations and the location-based Explore feature.

Find new music or track down old favorites in seconds

You can finally know the name of that awesome song playing at the club with the best music identification app on the market.

Shazam is your best tool for figuring out what song is playing around you in a matter of seconds, whether you're sitting in a quiet cafe or out for drinks at a bar with your friends. If you hear a song that catches your ear, you can open Shazam, where you're immediately presented with a single large button. Tap the button, and Shazam will take a couple of seconds to listen to the song before coming back with a title, artist, album, and lyrics. It's that easy. Of course, if you want to make it even simpler, there's an option for that too.

If you don't want to open the app to manually identify each song you come across, you can enable Shazam's Auto option. This will let Shazam passively listen to the music and media playing around you, saving each song that it identifies even if you don't have the app open or if you lock your device. You can also set up the Auto feature to send you a notification each time it tags a new song.

Though Shazam may seem simple on the surface, it has a host of added features that enhance it from an everyday app to an absolute must-have music app. Chief among these features is Shazam's ability to identify a song wherever you are, even if you aren't connected to a network. If you don't have service, Shazam can still operate in offline mode. Simply tap to Shazam as usual, and the next time Shazam connects, it will use that saved song clip to identify the song.

Whether it identifies the songs online or offline, Shazam will save a history of your tags. This can be useful for checking out Shazam identifications that you may have forgotten. Shazam will also use this history to start recommending new music and build playlists based on specific songs that you've found using Shazam.

It feels similar to Spotify's music discovery features, like the Discover Weekly playlists. It's also been copied on rival music identification apps such as SoundHound. You'll also find links to other platforms you can purchase or listen to the songs you find, like Spotify, Apple Music, and Google Play Music. If you enable location features, Shazam will also let you know if any of the artists you've discovered have upcoming concert dates in your area. You'll also be able to see songs that other Shazam users in your area have tagged.

Aside from these major pluses, there are smaller features that also go a long way to make Shazam so easy to use. Shazam's accuracy is a major advantage; it can accurately identify a song that's playing on a TV show or under background noise like people talking. Shazam is also ad-free, which isn't a feature its major competitors can boast. SoundHound, for example, requires users to upgrade to a paid version of the app to remove advertisements. If you've installed Shazam on multiple platforms, you'll also enjoy cross-platform compatibility. Any identifications Shazam makes will sync across all of your devices.

Shazam's list of features is seemingly endless. More than just a simple song identification app, Shazam is a must-have music app for any fan.

The only occasional downside to Shazam is that it can sometimes have trouble identifying songs played on louder volumes or over a high level of background noise. If you're in a loud room with a lot of people where the music is blasting (like a nightclub for example), Shazam will probably have trouble with its identification. You'll likely notice that it will take longer than usual to identify a song, or be unable to identify it entirely. This issue is minor, however, and doesn't do much to detract from Shazam's overall excellence.

Where can you run this program?

Is there a better alternative?

Though there are a few Shazam alternatives, most are simply carbon copies of Shazam and don't offer much in the way of distinguishing features. Shazam's major competitor, SoundHound, performs almost identically with the added option of using voice commands to identify music. You can also hum a tune that you have stuck in your head, and SoundHound will try to identify it based on what you've hummed. It's a nice feature, but can be difficult to use in a location with loud music such as a nightclub. The humming identification feature is also hit-or-miss, as it requires you to be fairly musically accurate to receive an identification of the song.

Genius is another similar app, but focuses mainly on song lyrics. If you're trying to figure out what the lyrics are to a certain song or singalong karaoke-style, you can use Genius to find them. Genius also offers added bits of trivia and other facts about the meanings behind those lyrics.

Our take

There isn't much to dislike about Shazam. The app does exactly what it purports to, and you'll never have to waste another second trying to track down the name of that song you heard playing once in a cafe. The app is sleek and functional with added features that enhance the experience rather than feeling forced or gimmicky.

Should you download it?

Absolutely. Shazam is the best choice you can make for a music identification app.