Shazam’s Music-Recognition Feature in iOS 14

Apple after acquiring music-recognition application Shazam in 2018, turned it into an integral part of iPhone experience. Earlier Shazam used to be an independent software or application available to users whether they are using an Android or IOS. Apple has now integrated Shazam as a feature into its operating system with the latest iOS, allowing you to recognize any music or tune when you are using an iPhone and an iPad without installing or having a standalone application to do it. Let’s take a look on how to use this feature to identify songs.

Adding Shazam to your Control Center

To make things streamlined and quickly find out what song is playing, the most convenient way to access Shazam is by adding it to Control Center. Steps to enable it:

• Go to iPhone Settings
• Select Control Center
• Choose the “+” next to Music Recognition

This will add a Shazam icon to Control Center. To reposition it, tap and hold the Shazam icon to the right of the Music Recognition option and move it either up or down. If you do not want it, you can tap the minus (-) icon and select Remove.

When you are in a pub or somewhere outside and need to find out the name and singer of the song you’re hearing and your friends are as clueless as you are, just swipe down the control center from the top-right of your mobile (or swipe up from the bottom if you are using an iPhone 6, 7 or 8) to reach Control Center, then tap the Shazam icon to look for the song online. Shazam will search thoroughly in its database and will present the song name, singer name, as a notification banner at the top of the screen. 

If you want more information you can tap on the banner and open Shazam’s music website to look for what you are seeking. And if you have the Shazam app installed on your device, you will be redirected to the application and provided with additional track and album info.

Since Apple has acquired Shazam, there is also an option to open the song in Apple Music , but you also get the option of opening the song with other music streaming applications such as Spotify, amazon music, etc. Just tap the menu on the top right to open it and select any other music-streaming service. You can connect your Shazam app to Apple Music or Spotify, and the app will suggest you to play your Shazam’s music tracks in that particular app.

Use Siri to Shazam

Another easy way to use Shazam’s music-recognition feature is to ask “hey Siri”: “What is the name of song playing currently?” Siri will search for you and present additional song information through a notification banner, same way you get other notifications from the Control Center. Furthermore, you can also say Siri “play more songs like this,” and it will create a playlist of similar songs in Apple Music.

Calling Siri to know the name of the song is comparatively faster than going for the opening Control Center and tapping the Shazam icon. Apart from that, by employing Siri, you will be able to find any song that is being played.