Shazam now works 'harder' and 'longer' to recognize the song that's playing

Shazam on iPhone
Shazam on iPhone (Image credit: iMore)

What you need to know

  • Apple's Shazam has received a new app update.
  • Release notes say that the app tries "harder, for longer" to recognize songs.

Apple-owned music recognition app Shazam has been updated to make it more capable of recognizing songs, according to its App Store release notes.

According to those release notes, users can look forward to an updated Shazam that will work "harder, for long" in its attempts to recognize whatever song is playing at the time. Shazam isn't saying exactly what any of that really means, but it does sound like it should be to the benefit of music fans who have previously struggled to have the app identify songs at times.

Shazam now finds more songs by trying harder, for longer. Tap to Shazam to give it a go!

Shazam is often capable of identifying whatever song is playing almost immediately, but this change means that the app will now work for longer to give itself chance to put a name to those songs that are a little more difficult to recognize. That could be useful when using the app in noisy environments like bars and at parties, for example.

Shazam doesn't only recognize songs, of course. Users can also discover popular songs in their country or city, while music can be opened directly in Apple Music and Spotify when needed, too. Couple that with a handy widget that makes identifying songs as speedy as possible and Shazam is arguably a must-have app for music lovers everywhere.

Shazam is a free download and can be had from the App Store now. The app supports iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch while there's even iMessage support should that be something that you're on the lookout for as well. Shazam is undoubtedly the best iPhone app at what it does and it just got better.

Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.