Shazam is today the most popular application when it comes to scanning a piece of music to find out the artist and the title. However, other alternatives exist and a new one has just been released … It is called NowPlaying and offers an exceptional interface with all the performance of Shazam.
Discover NowPlaying
Available on the App Store in France since the day before yesterday, the NowPlaying application is presented as an application competitor by Shazam.
The principle is the same, the app will offer you to scan a sample of music being played and the system will examine the musical piece then give you the name of the artist as well as the title.
NowPlaying has chosen the ease, instead of developing its own method of musical recognition (which would have taken several years of work), the application preferred to use the ShazamKit, it is a framework provided by Apple to developers wishing to offer a alternative to Shazam.
As a result, a motivated and ambitious developer can quickly to recover Shazam’s large central database and include it in a similar app that he designed himself.
Suddenly, you will ask us, but why choose the copy rather than the original?
This question is quite legitimate.
In terms of experience, you will not see any difference since between Shazam and NowPlaying, it will be the same answers and the same time for the conclusion.
What really changes is interface. NowPlaying has chosen a interface premium, the menus are uncluttered, there is no information in all directions and any advertising. The developers of the application have decided to bet 100% on the user experience!
The main objective was to offer a look simple and most own possible, moreover the application goes into detail by associating the album cover with the interface: “By using the album cover colors, we make sure the interface always matches the aesthetic of the song.”.
As you can see above, if the cover has a black background, the app will automatically adapt to provide you with a dark interface. If the album is rather full of colors, you will have various colors in the background.
This attachment to user experience hardly exists at Shazam, the big difference is that Apple aims for a “commercial” approach by showing details of your search and redirects to Apple Music.
At NowPlaying we are looking more for a professional, high-end approach.
There is still a link with Apple Music
If you use NowPlaying, you will still be able to enjoy a redirect to Apple Music. Even if the creators of the app have nothing to gain from it, they still offer a link with Apple’s streaming service. It is possible to add an analyzed song to a playlist that you have already created on Apple Music.
Was this one of the arrangements to take advantage of the ShazamKit kindly distributed by Apple? It’s possible. We know the business spirit of the Californian giant … It would not be surprising.
A ton of information
NowPlaying displays a lot of information, but still useful and relevant. With a simple music search, you have in addition to the title and the artist:
- Release date
- The genre of music
- The musicians who participated
- What album is the music on
- The label
- As well as special notes
Unlike Shazam, NowPlaying is paying, the application will cost you € 1.99, but the app will no longer ask you for any euro after downloading. This rate unlocks all of the application’s features.
The application is available on ios and iPadOS.
To download NowPlaying – Music Display to € 1.99