Few if any apps showcased the delightful possibilities of the iPhone as much as Shazam, which debuted in concert with the App Store in 2008.
You remember the feeling of hearing a song at a bar or in an elevator, launching the Shazam app, and have instant knowledge and background information of that track. Genius.
Since those salad days of mobile apps, of course, an ensemble of notable music discovery competitors have crowded in on Shazam’s space. Soundhound can not only identify a song, but play scrolling lyrics in time with the music. SoundTracking lets users share what songs they are listening to with their friends and followers. Like Shazam, both Soundhound and SoundTracking are also available on Android devices.
Shazam today strikes back with the brand new (and free!) Shazam Player app which, shockingly, lets users share songs with their friends and read lyrics in real time.
“I’d be remiss if I didn’t admit we keep an eye on the competition,” acknowledged David Jones, Shazam’s vice president of marketing. “But we have our own road map and are focused on what is best for our business and for our users.”
In addition to sharing and lyric scrolling, Shazam Players has a snappy interface that allows users to create custom playlists (separate from iTunes) on the fly. All iTunes library data is also imported within the app.
Jones said that although Shazam Player launched exclusively on iOS devices, that the app would be coming to other platforms in the not too distant future. The original Shazam app is on all seven major mobile platforms.
While Shazam Player is not as revolutionary as the company’s flagship app (how could it be), it is still more than a worthy download and music player alternative.
