Music ID vs. Music Discovery
Most music apps for the iPhone rely on streaming or cached (downloaded) songs and audio. Some apps provide ways to discover similar music based on your tastes and search behavior. This is music discovery. A music ID app can identify the songs you are listening to through some form of online database. One method uses your iPhone’s built-in microphone to “listen” to a song and pull a sample from it. The app then attempts to identify it by comparing the sample’s audio fingerprint against the online database. Well-known databases include Gracenote MusicID and Shazam. Other apps work by matching lyrics to identify songs. These rely on you typing in a few lyrics, which are then matched using an online lyrics database. The list of music ID apps below highlights some of the best music ID apps available to download on your iPhone. The Shazam app is free to download and gives you unlimited tagging with information such as track name, artist, and lyrics. There’s also an upgraded version of the app called Shazam Encore. This one is ad-free and offers more functionality. Download For: With SoundHound, you can also find out the name of a track by using your voice. You can either hum or sing into the microphone. This comes in handy when you can’t hold your iPhone up to a sound source, or you missed catching a sample of it. The free version of SoundHound is ad-supported (like Shazam) and gives you an unlimited number of music IDs. Download For: You can also use the MusicID app to watch YouTube music videos, look up artist biographies, see similar-sounding tracks, and add geotags to recognized songs. Download For:
