by Alissa Skelton on Mashable
The latest version of the Shazam iPhone app will recognize music, TV and advertisements “in as little as a second,” according to its creators. Shazam lets users hold their iPhone Shazam up to the sound from a music speaker or TV and find out app what they’re listening to — perfect for those “oh, who sings this?” moments.
Shazam 5.0 hit the Apple store on Tuesday. The popular free iOS music identifying app claims to be faster than another other app of its kind.
“With the release of Shazam 5.0 for iPhone and iPod touch, Shazam fans will be able to get the information they’re looking for almost instantaneously, giving them lightning-fast access to content and a deeper experience surrounding the song, TV show or TV advertisement they have just tagged,” said Alex Musil, executive vice president of product for Shazam.
Mashable tested Shazam’s claims. The Shazam app was able to identify a Rihanna song in three seconds. The older version of Shazam took about 10 seconds.
In addition to kicking up the app’s speed, Shazam’s developers redesigned the user interface and improved the ways users can share Shazam activity on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. Users can also now add a personal comment when they tag a song. Essentially, Shazam wants to be the new music player for listeners — its social sharing makes the app closer to Spotify.
The app will still have features such as LyricPlay (which provides the lyrics in time with the music), purchasing information, social sharing options, music videos, tour info, album reviews and more.
In addition, Shazam rolled out additional language support for Brazilian Portuguese, Korean and Spanish for South America. Altogether, the app is now available in 33 languages.
Photo courtesy of Shazam.
