Siri Shazam

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Siri

HomePod’s strand of Siri has its limitations, but its music features are pretty robust. You can actually use the Shazam song identification features on HomePod, you just need to know the right request phrase for Siri.

Shazam has been around for years, but iOS 14 has introduced a number of updates that let you use the music recognition app in the Control Center or via Siri. Additionally, you can tell Siri “play more songs like this,” and it will queue up similar tracks in Apple Music. Evoking Siri to discover music is faster than opening Control Center and tapping the Shazam icon. On the other hand, by using Siri, you won’t be able to disguise the fact that you don’t know a song.

The HomePod uses its microphones to listen to the environment and Shazam will try to find a match for the song. You can then get the HomePod to play the song straight from Apple Music. Here’s how to use Shazam on HomePod …

On an iPhone or iPad, you can say something like ‘what song is this?’ and if music isn’t actively playing in an app, Siri will know your intent to mean ‘what song is playing in the real world right now’ and start listening for Shazam results.

On HomePod, I think these same phrases are supposed to work. However, because the HomePod is almost always playing tracks, asking Siri on HomePod ‘what song is this?’ will just tell you about the song that the device is currently playing.

Luckily, there’s an easy way to unambiguously get Siri to use Shazam. Just walk over to your HomePod and say ‘Hey Siri, Shazam this’.

The HomePod will then say something to the effect of ‘I’m listening’. After a few seconds, as long as it can hear the song in the room, it will reply by saying ‘It sounds like [song name] by [artist]’.

What’s really nice is that the HomePod will remember the context for the follow up. With a successful match, you can then say ‘Hey Siri, play it’. It will then start playing the matched track from your library or from Apple Music, assuming you are subscribed.

Siri Shazam

I tested this just by holding up my iPhone playing a track from YouTube and it worked perfectly. Thanks to the array of microphones inside HomePod, you don’t have to be super close to it either.

In party situations, this is kind of a handy feature to know about if you just want to get a certain track playing from someone else’s device that doesn’t necessarily have an iPhone or isn’t streaming from Apple Music.

Using Shazam is probably the quickest way to go from watching a VEVO music video from YouTube on your phone to playing the song on the HomePod.

Apple is currently in the process of acquiring Shazam and I bet song identification features become a bigger part of the Apple Music story in the coming years.

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Shazam was a true game-changer as one of the first apps to appear in the App Store back in July 2008. With just a tap, Shazam could identify nearly any song you heard without needing to know anything about it. Shazam was a magical app that I used to show off my iPhone, and unlike all those other apps whose novelty wore off in just a few weeks (anyone remember iBeer?), Shazam has only gotten better over the years.

Music

Apple has long had partnered with Shazam to power Siri’s song identification service, but now the Cupertino giant has confirmed that it is buying the company outright for a cool $400 million, a relative bargain in today’s tech dollars. On the surface, a Shazam purchase ensures that Siri will always be able to recognize the song you’re listening to and will provide a boost to Apple Music, but I think Apple has much bigger plans for the service.

Like everything else Apple seems to be doing now, it’s about augmented reality and machine learning. And it could be the thing that finally puts Siri back at the front of the pack.

Listen up

Shazam

Siri Shazam History

Shazam’s main strength is music identification, and that fits well into Apple’s current strategy. It’s not just Siri on our phones: AirPods, HomePod, and Apple Watch could benefit from Shazam’s uncanny ability to name that tune.

And we might not even have to ask. On the new Pixel phones, Google has implemented a feature that displays the name of a song playing nearby even if Assistant hasn’t been asked. It’s a neat feature that’s all done locally, and I use far more often than I thought I would. A similar feature would be great on the iPhone, and with Shazam’s massive library at Apple’s disposal it would be far superior to Google’s.

But where Shazam could really help Siri’s ears is with HomePod. Apple wants its new home speaker to “reinvent home music,” but if all it does is sound good, that’s hardly revolutionary. If Apple could leverage its Shazam acquisition to build some serious smarts into HomePod, it could be a difference maker. We will already be able to ask Siri to play things like the most popular song in 1986, but Shazam could amplify its knowledge considerably. It would be great to tap your AirPods and ask “Play the song that goes like this …” or “Play that Ed Sheeran song about Ireland.” Shazam might not be able to do that now, but the groundwork is certainly in place, particularly when paired with Apple’s own AI musical capabilities.

And it could go beyond simple song identification too. Apple could use Shazam to create personalized playlists right on HomePod, based on your listening habits and tastes. Apple Music already creates mixes that are pretty great, but Apple’s machine learning could use what it hears to create customized playlists for the time of day that only play in our homes. That alone could be a reason to spend $350 on a HomePod.

Seeing is believing

Siri Shazam This Song

Shazam may be a household name when it comes to song identification, but the underlying technology has much broader application. Back in 2015, Shazam added visual recognition to its portfolio, and while it hasn’t caught on quite as well as its audio capabilities, Apple’s new AR push could definitely benefit.

Even with ARKit, Apple is lagging when it comes to augmented reality, especially on the AI side of things. Most notably, Google has introduced a technology with the Pixel 2 called Lens, which works with Assistant to identify and interact with real-world objects. For example, you could point your phone at a building and Assistant will tell you about it, or you can scan a business card and it will automatically be added to your contacts. Google will soon be rolling out Lens to all Android phones, and once it does, Siri on the iPhone will seem even more outdated than it already does.

But Shazam could give Apple a real boost here. While the public face of Shazam’s visual recognition has mainly focuses on brands—like scanning a movie poster to access a trailer—but Apple could tap into Shazam’s engine to give Siri a whole new class of intelligence. We’ve read enough rumors about the Apple car and Apple glasses to see that AR is the next area of focus, and Shazam could help bring that future into view. We know Shazam will amplify Siri’s ears, but it could be a boost to its vision too.

Siri Shazam

Better but not exclusive

Shazam History Iphone

When Apple bought Beats, I expected Apple would force users to buy an iPhone if they wanted a new pair. That hasn’t happened. Instead, Apple has made the experience better on the iPhone with seamless pairing, a feature that I suspect has actually sold more iPhones than forcing people to switch.

Siri Shazam Shortcut

I expect something similar with Shazam. While conventional thinking would suggest that Apple would shutter the Android app in a few months, I don’t think that will be the case. But I do think Shazam will be better on iOS. Android users will get the same song-identifying Shazam that’s available today while iOS users will enjoy more features, even beyond what’s baked into the newer products. Apple likely won’t cut people off, but it will add enough cool features for people to notice. I think we’ll see a delineation between the Shazam app on the Play Store and the App Store, as Apple enhances its capabilities on iOS and adds exclusive features.

Apple’s purchase of Shazam might have been a bigger deal three years ago, but it could have much more of an impact on your Apple devices now. Earlier today, TechCrunch reported that Spotify and Snap were also interested in purchasing Shazam, so the potential here is more than just cornering the market on song identification. Apple is poised to leap into the AI and AR race with both feet, and Shazam could be the perfect technology to vault them to the head of the class.

Siri Shazam History

And if not, well, at least Siri will be better than Assistant and Cortana at IDing songs. That’s worth $400 million, right?