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Shazam for iOS updated with Pulse discovery feature, redesigned tab bar on iPhone
It's been a mere few weeks since Shazam introduced those new location-based and tagging features for the tablet version of its iOS app, but the music-driven service isn't stopping there. Reaching version 6.1 on Apple's platform, today Shazam's universal application is bringing a few more tidbits to both the iPhone and iPad. Handset users, for one, will notice speedier load times within the app and a rather fresh look that focuses on displaying more info on the tab bar -- such as friend tags and chart updates. On the bigger screen, Shazam says it's improved things by allowing users to more easily delete tags from Favorites and by adding under-the-hood tweaks which should make for a smoother experience while browsing the Friends feed. The bigger news, perhaps, is Shazam Pulse, a music discovery tool that's making its way to the iOS app, one which allows folks to quickly see and sample the music currently being tagged by people. It's worth noting that all these new features are available for Shazam and Shazam Encore, so fret not if you have one or the other.
Shazam 5.0 offers faster tagging and startup
When you absolutely, positively need to know the song that is playing on the background soundtrack at the restaurant or club, Shazam (free) is the go-to application. The app "listens" to music, queries a database, and responds with information including the song's title, artist, and sometimes even the lyrics. Shazam just got a lot better, with a bump to version 5.0 that should make every user of the app even happier. As you can see from the update screen at right, Shazam (I use the $5.99 Encore version) has improved tagging and recognition speeds dramatically. One feature I was personally happy to see was improved startup time -- when you were trying to get Shazam to catch a few bars at the end of a song, it was annoying to have it take so long to start up that you missed it. The app now launches much faster -- the company says it's over a second quicker, but it feels faster than that. If you like to tweet what you're listening to, you can now edit your tweets if you're using iOS 5. The synchronization of LyricPlay lyrics to the music is better; I found almost no lag between the music and lyrics, even over "4G". The update to version 5.0 is a freebie and should appear in your App Store list of updates today.
Shazam violates Developer Agreement, blames Jeff Rock
Jeff Rock happened to notice a push notification on his iPhone after installing Shazam. He checked it and it turned out to be an advertisement that had popped up. Since it didn't seem like expected behavior (push notification of an advert?), Jeff tweeted the Shazam folks to ask about it. Instead of a) Apologizing and trying to sort it out, b) Taking him seriously and helping troubleshoot, or c) Ignoring him entirely, they chose d) Tell Jeff it was clearly his fault. Not so fast there, Shazam...missing the point he was trying to make, they told him that he must have turned notification on himself and needed to turn them off. Let me just point out that his complaint was not that he received A notification, it was that he received an AD as a notification. Telling them so got him the reply that he had clearly opted-in to notification at some point. Jeff, trying to be more clear, quoted back chapter and verse from the iOS Program Standard Agreement that this particular "feature" was violating. This got a different response at least; now they say they'll "look into it". For Jeff in particular, I can see how this would be extra frustrating. He's a developer himself, co-founder of Mobelux who built the app that is now the official iOS Tumblr client. It seems the number of "Can you believe I got rejected for that!?" incidents is in decline, but with the number of apps that still get rejected for small reasons, it is odd this particular violation happened to make it through the approval process.
Shazam Encore updated with lyrics, how about iTunes?
Shazam has released another update for its paid Encore app, this one adding full lyrics of over 25,000 songs on the service from provider LyricPlay. It lets you stream the lyrics in real-time as the song plays, so you can sing (or even just read) along. It's not exactly a reason to shell out for the US$5.99 app -- I'm still using the free version to identify music that I listen to, and it works just fine for that purpose. But it's a nice addition to the Encore functionality, and it's good to see that someone has worked out how to make song lyrics available to listeners in a simple and easy way. In fact, this makes us wonder just where iTunes is on this issue. We've seen rumors for a long time that iTunes has been trying to add a lyrics feature (and there are plenty of ways to just do it yourself if you'd like to do that). But especially now that Apple has figured out something as complicated as iTunes Match, surely lyrics shouldn't be that hard to do, right? Unfortunately, the RIAA is still against it, and they've actually shut down any relatively easy solutions for quickly bringing lyrics into iTunes. It's a real shame -- especially for any music purchased from the iTunes Store (and because of the way iTunes Match works, all of your music will probably come from the App Store soon), we should really have access to the lyrics as the songs play.
