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Apple has completed its acquisition of Shazam

nr.apple.com

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Re: Apple has completed its acquisition of Shazam

#51

Post by icebraining »

lobo_tuerto wrote: post #34
jonwachob91 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Shazam is the closest thing we have to witchcraft. I've never used Shazam, but I used a similar feature on my LG Chocolate back in the day. How is Shazam any different than what my LG Chocolate did (aside from the Spotify integration)?

I don't understand why you do expect others to know about that when Shazam is ubiquitous and you haven't bothered to try it yet. See for yourself. Expecting people to know how is it different from an LG Chocolate is just absurd...

Apparently Verizon's LG Chocolate came with a service called VCast Song ID, that did the same thing as Shazam: "On certain phones, users can record a 10-second clip of a song, have it automatically identified, and optionally buy a copy of it for playback on a phone or computer." (https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/name-that-tune-with-ver...)

That said, Shazam is actually older, having started as a shortcode service in the UK way back in 2002.

Re: Apple has completed its acquisition of Shazam

#52

Post by watty »

SmellyGeekBoy wrote: post #21

Shazam is the closest thing we have to witchcraft. I'm sure plenty of HNers will chime in with "well acktually..." type comments about how they could write it in their basement in a weekend, but to do what it does, as quickly as it does, on the ridiculously enormous library of music that it does is really something special.

I don't mean to take away from Shazam (because I too was amazed when I first used it) but the Pixel phones have Shazam-like ability built in which uses minimal battery and without internet... and it's constantly running any time music plays.

Not really "magic" how it works but still pretty amazing that I can pull the phone out of my pocket any time I hear a song I like and immediately see the band/title.

Re: Apple has completed its acquisition of Shazam

#53

Post by sp332 »

colordrops wrote: post #42
denzil_correa wrote: post #2

> The app will soon offer its experience ad-free for all users so everyone can enjoy the best of Shazam without interruption. Probably, one of the best results from this acquisition.

You can bet they will kill integration with Spotify though. And maybe no more Android support. I'll take ads over that.

Apple Music has an Android app, so I don't think they're that cutthroat on the music side of things.

Re: Apple has completed its acquisition of Shazam

#54

Post by Reedx »

I remember feeling that way the first time I used Uber (in SF where getting a taxi was difficult and unreliable).

A few taps on my phone and a car shows up to my exact location in 2 minutes?! And that's it? No calling dispatch and hoping they'd show up eventually (sometimes they didn't). No fumbling with cash or tip or anything.

It was like magic.

Re: Apple has completed its acquisition of Shazam

#56

Post by pavlov »

Hopefully they'll rewrite Shazam's Apple Watch app using the private first-party APIs so that it actually works rather than randomly crashing 50% of the time.

The state of third-party apps on the Watch is awful. It usually takes 10 seconds for an app to start on a Series 2, and sometimes they just get stuck on that loading screen. If you manage to get an app running, the UI library has ridiculous bugs like accidentally enabled screen rotation where turning your wrist flips the content by 90°. (Unlike a phone, there's no reason at all for a watch to react to orientation changes.)

I could sort of understand these deficiencies for a hurried 1.0 product, but it's been three years and it's still this bad. There's no API for watch faces either. I get the impression that Apple truly doesn't want third parties on the Watch at all.

Re: Apple has completed its acquisition of Shazam

#57

Post by brazzledazzle »

SmellyGeekBoy wrote: post #21

Shazam is the closest thing we have to witchcraft. I'm sure plenty of HNers will chime in with "well acktually..." type comments about how they could write it in their basement in a weekend, but to do what it does, as quickly as it does, on the ridiculously enormous library of music that it does is really something special.

I think the “actually” makes it even better. Even if the underlying technology isn’t anything truly special the application of it is pretty clever.

Re: Apple has completed its acquisition of Shazam

#58

Post by akhilcacharya »

Timmah wrote: post #38
SmellyGeekBoy wrote: post #21

Shazam is the closest thing we have to witchcraft. I'm sure plenty of HNers will chime in with "well acktually..." type comments about how they could write it in their basement in a weekend, but to do what it does, as quickly as it does, on the ridiculously enormous library of music that it does is really something special.

It creates a time series of frequencies then checks a db for that same series. A problem that is easily parallelizable. Probably does some filtering first. It's a very useful and clever application, but not that technically challenging. The most amazing feat is they got access to the catalogs of the record labels. I wish someone would do the same thing for commercials on TV. Auto detect the commercial and advance the…

Aren't most commercials sold in 30-60 second blocks?

Re: Apple has completed its acquisition of Shazam

#59

Post by iamdave »

colordrops wrote: post #42
denzil_correa wrote: post #2

> The app will soon offer its experience ad-free for all users so everyone can enjoy the best of Shazam without interruption. Probably, one of the best results from this acquisition.

You can bet they will kill integration with Spotify though. And maybe no more Android support. I'll take ads over that.

This is immediately where my mind went, the spotify integration is without a doubt the best thing (IMO) about Shazam. Find a song, in two screen taps I can add it to a playlist and come back to it when I'm queuing up tunes for the drive home from work.

I will be very disappointed if this comes to light, and the only integration we're left with is Apple Music.

Probably not likely, but probably not improbable either.

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