{"id":659776,"date":"2013-05-23T07:00:03","date_gmt":"2013-05-23T11:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gigaom.com\/?p=648458"},"modified":"2013-05-23T07:00:03","modified_gmt":"2013-05-23T11:00:03","slug":"shazams-new-ipad-app-automatically-tags-every-song-you-ever-listen-to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/659776","title":{"rendered":"Shazam\u2019s new iPad app automatically tags every song you ever listen to"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shazam<\/a> released a major update to its iOS app Thursday that turns your iPad into an automated log file for every song you listen to, every TV show you watch and every commercial you\u2019re trying to ignore.<\/p>\n

This is possibly due to a new feature dubbed auto tagging: Once turned on, Shazam will automatically listen to everything within reach of the iPad\u2019s microphone, generate an acoustic fingerprint every few seconds and ping Shazam\u2019s servers to look for matches. Identified songs, TV shows and ads are automatically sent to a personal queue within the Shazam app.<\/p>\n

Users can then browse through these finds, add songs to their favorites, buy them on iTunes or stream them through Rdio. What’s interesting about this feature is that it also works in the background, while you\u2019re doing something in another app or even when the iPad\u2019s lock screen is enabled. iPad users will know that auto tagging is enabled through the red bar on the top of their screen, just like you\u2019re used to seeing when you\u2019re switching to another app during a Skype call.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

The red bar means: Shazam is listening. For the next song.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

That red bar is meant to warn users that their microphone is recording sound — but Shazam EVP of Marketing David Jones wasn\u2019t all that happy about that notion when I talked to him Wednesday about the app update. \u201cWe are not recording or storing anything,\u201d he said, adding that the app was \u201cjust borrowing the mic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shazam\u2019s new iPad app is one of a growing number of apps and devices that always keep the microphone running<\/a> in order to react to speech, or in this case music; others include the new Xbox One. It\u2019s a concept that will make some privacy-conscious consumers nervous — but Jones said that there are huge upsides to this approach.<\/p>\n

Instead of making users scramble to find and activate the tagging app on the mobile device, auto tagging will let them come back to the music they heard throughout a TV show, or even at the end of a day. To illustrate it, Jones told me that he had his iPad in the car a few days ago, listening to radio program while he was driving. And when he got to work, he had a full queue of recognized songs waiting for him. \u201cMy entire commute\u2019s music was sitting there,” he said.<\/p>\n

Aside from auto-tagging, Shazam is also adding TV content recognition, social functionality and a mapping feature that shows where people are listening to which songs. Shazam has retired its old, standalone iPad app and is rolling out the update as a universal app, but the iPhone will only get the mapping feature for now.<\/p>\n

Jones said that the iPhone is going to get auto-tagging later this summer. It\u2019s unclear yet when Android is going to see auto-tagging, but other features of the new iPad app will find their way to the tablet version of Android within the next two months.<\/p>\n

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