CS 491 – Shazam Critique – Cody Stuttgen
The app is called Shazam and their website is http://www.shazam.com/.
Have you ever been at a club, friend’s house, or the mall and heard a familiar song playing but just can’t think of the title of it is or what it is called? Shazam, developed by Shazam Entertainment Limited, simply “listens” to a small portion of the song and comes back with the name and artist along with links to where you can buy the song or get a ringtone of the song.
How to use the app is pretty simple. On the tagging screen there is a giant “S” and dialogue that says “Tap to listen.” You then just hold the phone so that the microphone can hear the song. After about 10 seconds of listening, the app returns the song title, artist, album, links to YouTube, Ebay, Spotify, Facebook, lyrics, and ringtones.
I looks like there is a horizontal layout of the menus on top with headings for tagging, My Tags, Chart and Friends. The area below this varies with every screen but My Tags and Charts appear to use a vertical layout of a list. This app is perfect for mobile devices because it is something that you would most likely have on you at all times, especially those times you hear a song you don’t know. It also allows you to share songs you’ve heard on Facebook and Twitter.
The online reviews are very good. It has an average rating of 4.4 out of 5 stars. The biggest complaints are that the app crashes and that there are ads. The app crashing could be problems with the user’s phone and the ads are expected with a free app. Overall it is a simple and solid app. It is comparable to another app called SoundHound. They both have their own unique features and operate the same way. There doesn’t seem to be a major advantage from one to the other.
I tried to break the app but there is not much you can to do that. I tried rapid clicks on the menus and all that happened was a delay between getting to the next menu. The only time I’ve had problems with Shazam is if I get a text while the app is listening. When this happens it just says that the song cannot be identified, but the app has never forced close for me yet!
The app is free with unlimited tagging. Money comes in when there is a link posted to sites like Amazon or iTunes where you can buy the song. There are also apps being advertised while you are navigating the menus and when the app is listening to a song.