Technology
Apple is making Shazam the biggest part of your iPhone
Apple bought the Shazam music recognition app in 2018, and now integrates it into iOS in another big way — a new Music Recognition feature can identify songs that play around you as well as on your phone apps. And even when you listen to music on your headphones, it works.
The new feature is available as a toggle in the Control Center, but it does require an iOS 14.2 beta developer if you want to try it right now. That toggle will look like a little Shazam icon, and you just need to tap it to start listening to your iPhone.
You could already use Siri to summon Shazam and identify songs playing around you, but being able to identify music in your apps might also be handy — if, say, you're wondering what song the creator picked for their TikTok or YouTube video.
Interestingly, since June 2019, Android users have been able to use Shazam to identify music played through headphones. It's not clear why it took more than a year to get to the iOS.
We're not yet sure if the final iOS 14.2 will come with this feature — iOS 14 just released the other day — or if it could even slip to another release. But with the new iPhones set to be launched sometime in October, maybe we'll see a release around then.
