Shazam Brings Always-On Music and TV Recognition to Mac With Free Menu Bar App

[Anonymous Freak]

Hmmm... A live mike with a network connection running 24/7 on my desk. What could go wrong?

This could have been really cool, but you just can't trust anyone anymore...

Will definitely be reading the entire privacy policy before I install this.

Is Shazam a front for the NSA?

Yeah. Definitely going to read the privacy policy and license agreement this one before I even consider installing. This just sounds like a bad idea.

Oh, not the premise itself - having an "always know what you're watching/listening to" is pretty good - although if you're on a desktop computer, you probably have ready access to that already. Laptop seems more useful - like figuring out what the song playing at the coffee shop is.

TV doesn't seem quite as useful - most methods for watching TV episodes now have some way of showing the episode information on screen.


Edit: I know the NSA quip isn't a serious concern (well, except to the "tinfoil hat brigade".) But the potential for business abuse is rife. I am *VERY* concerned about their potential to use "monitored audio" for "marketing purposes" - aka speech detection that they then sell the profile to marketing companies.

 

[ttss6]

Am I the only one not worried about privacy? With me at least they're not going to find anything of interest

 

[barkmonster]

My thoughts exactly.

Unfortunately that was wishful thinking on my part.

If the iOS version can't identify tunes I want to buy, the same audio recognition engine in a Mac native app won't either.

Also, it's Mavericks only and I'm sticking with Mountain Lion for compatibility with some older software I can't afford to upgrade yet.

The concept sounded appealing though.

 

[Chupa Chupa]

Yeah, exactly. It's your right NOT TO DOWNLOAD AND INSTALL IT IF YOU DON'T WANT TO.
Bill of Rights is Bill of Privileges (c). If you really believe you have all those rights and nobody can strip them off you, you're delusional just like the people who think NSA will conquer the world with the help of Shazam data and knowing how many times 14yo girls have listened to Justin Bieber last week.

Oh geez. Go read the 4th Amendment. Then go read a few S.Ct. rulings on the 4th Amendment including the most recent regarding cell phone searches. The case is Riley v. California. We DO have rights as American citizens as long as we don't gut them ourselves with complacency. I'm a lawyer and I fight to protect American's rights every day.

This isn't about the NSA knowing about people's music preferences. It's not even about the NSA or Shazam -- neither of which I referenced in my post to you.

It already exists but it's switched off by default - same as the desk top.

https://support.shazam.com/hc/en-us/articles/202603996-Auto-Shazam

Exactly. The current default is OFF -- opt-in, not opt-out. Doing the reverse changes the story.

 

[doboy]

More importantly, will it recognize the porn titles

 

[octothorpe8]

Shazam is the difintion of bloat-ware.

Yep. Shazam has one really cool core function, but they feel compelled to keep adding crap to it.

I noticed the other day my Shazam app had a notification badge with FORTY notifications on it. Hahaha, yeah right.

 

[CrazyForApple]

This seems cool, I might have to try it out.

 

[Tech198]

me too..

how is this different to music tagging software ?

If people are that concerned with the fact you need to log in to something just to get compare or save stuff to the NSA.. then don't use it...


It's always on the back of my mind too....Seriously, if their just looking the stuff up, why would you even need an account ?

only because their services work that way, and to try and keep customers... Anyone can say that. There is no big deal that you just use a service this days to tag music or what not and never need an account,

That is entirely do-able, yet no one does it that way.

(good thing this runs under Mavericks)

 

[PocketSand11]

What do you think happens if you play a song with these lyrics:

Ibrahim, Ibrahim, Ibrahim,
Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah we'll pray for you.
Hey!

Mustapha, Mustapha, Mustapha Ibrahim.
Mustapha, Mustapha, Mustapha Ibrahim.

Mustapha Ibrahim, Mustapha Ibrahim
Allah, Allah, Allah we'll pray for you.
Mustapha Ibrahim, al havra kris vanin
Allah, Allah, Allah we'll pray for you.
Mustapha, hey! Mustapha
Mustapha Ibrahim, Mustapha Ibrahim, hey!

Allah-i, Allah-i, Allah-i,
Ibra-Ibra-Ibrahim, yeah!
Ibrahim, Ibrahim, Ibrahim,
Allah Allah Allah-i hey!

If they're hiring people to listen to every Arab (Allah just means "God" in Arabic, not Islam-specific) American 24/7, I'm just worried that they're wasting our tax money.

 

[xxmrcxx]

For those talking about reading the terms and conditions, I'll save you some time.

How do we use your personal data?
(vii) to comply with laws, requests from a government bodies or courts, or to respond to litigation, and

While I personally could care less and installed it, I thought I'd share for those that are worried.

 

[PocketSand11]

Quietly monitors? Finally, an app that doesn't exhibit the classic problem of making a bunch of noise when it's trying to use the microphone!

But speaking of the microphone, am I reading this correctly? Does it really monitor audio all the time? Why not just when you activate it? Seems like a horrible idea, both for the user (who wants a constant live mic in their house?!) and their servers (do they really want to handle constant requests from a bunch of users)?

Really, it sounds like a massive waste of computer resources, constantly recording sending sound over the Internet.

 

[Brittany246]

It's not working on my macbook. My microphone works fine, and the music is loud enough.

 

[Snookerman]

Always-on is a huge deal breaker. It's not only bad for privacy, but also for battery life.

 

[Tech198]

it's only a deal breaker if its listening even when the app is not running..

Hopefully, that's not the case.

ya, i'm worried about logging into use software when you clearly shouldn't need to, juts to do something simple, or just to use.

but, if its popular, than obviously that's different, because either everyone doesn't know what may be going on really, or everyone using it would have figured it out by now.

so, in a way, popular is good. c

 

[topmounter]

"Free"

LOL, whatever.

 

[henryngan2006]

Yeah, cause the US Government were waiting precisely for this day so they can finally hear you say something like
- Honey, the dinner is ready!
- I'm coming love, just finishing my work [fap, fap, fap, fap, FAP, FAP, FAP, Oh, Yeaaaaa]

My god people are so self important. Nobody cares about you. You're not THAT important. You're not some millionaire, you don't work in some shady organisation. You're just a geek like us who spends some time on a gadget site and buys stupid stuff on Amazon once in a while. Get over yourself. Nobody wouldn't even want to know what music you are listening to, let alone your whole life.

Bro you're right. I also think that NSA doesn't exist and Edward Snowden is a big liar. Like, why would NSA spy on our phone calls right? That must be faaaaaaaaaake

 

[ProVideo]

I tried to find the track name for some music used in an ad the other day, instead it came up saying the song was the "CBS This Morning" show.The ad had nothing to do with that show, except it was probably a stock song used in a segment at some point. These new features are more of a nuisance than convenience.

They have been around for 5-10 years now. How have they not made a deal with KillerTracks, FirstCom, and other stock music services. It seems like it would be beneficial to all parties involved. Hell, release a Pro version for $5-10 and editors would likely be all over it.

 

[FarmerBob]

Very Scary! I have the TV on in the background and it's grabbing everything, including "How Do They Do It" in two seconds of the narrator talking about how wire is made and it connected it to the episode that is about suspension bridges. Correct. Plus all the commercials before I switched to this channel.

Sitting here with the drop down window open and watching what pops up. Oooops, it just missed an eHarmony commercial. But not much else.

I use the Android version and it's far more useful. And feels less intrusive? This Mac version is more of a toy than a tool.

 

[brunosh]

Yeah, cause the US Government were waiting precisely for this day so they can finally hear you say something like
- Honey, the dinner is ready!
- I'm coming love, just finishing my work [fap, fap, fap, fap, FAP, FAP, FAP, Oh, Yeaaaaa]

My god people are so self important. Nobody cares about you. You're not THAT important. You're not some millionaire, you don't work in some shady organisation. You're just a geek like us who spends some time on a gadget site and buys stupid stuff on Amazon once in a while. Get over yourself. Nobody wouldn't even want to know what music you are listening to, let alone your whole life.

Finally someone says something like this! So true! Suddenly everybody is worried about their privacy. You know what? Just don't use the internet and you'll be safe.

 

[Tech198]

"Always on" is a bit too desciptive..

Look at Shazam Website support for the mac : https://support.shazam.com/hc/en-us/articles/202803516-Shazam-for-Mac

"By Default, Shazam will only auto-listen for 4 hours. You can turn Shazam off at any point by toggling to ON/OFF Button (see below) or by quitting the app entirely (Right-click on the Shazam icon->Select 'Quit')."

 

[KernelG]

Their Getting Started support doc says "You must ensure that your on-board microphone is enabled and set to an input volume high enough to detect external media." (emphasis mine)

Anyone else on a Mac Pro or Mac mini having any luck?

From Shazam support:

Unfortunately, Shazam for Mac still needs an on-board microphone in order to function, so it would not be detecting any incoming audio on your machine.

I'll make sure this gets added to the information in the app store - apologies for the inconvenience!

This is still very early days for the app, though, so I'm certain consideration for Pro/Mini users will be included sooner rather than later.

Sounds like QA was done on one dude's MacBook. As someone else said, this does feel like an early beta. They can keep testing without me.

 

[isomorphic]

Great. Now Shazam can listen to my iTunes playlist and identify those tracks that iTunes Match doesn't.

 

[twigman08]

I really don't see the need for this programme - who sits around getting sound samples of music from other device. People shouldn't be in such an noisy environment anyway. If you don't know the band / song / artist, then maybe you shouldn't be looking for music. Have people really become this lazy?

Yea because why would I ever want to know the song that is being played in my Universities Union building, that coffee shop I go to between classes or that patio I like to sit outside at while having a quick beer while finishing up a project for class. Nope I should never know the song names to those. Plus your logic basically tells me I should not be doing anything with ambient music playing in the background. I need to stay away from those places. They're bad.

 

[zzapp25]

Doesn't work to me

Hi there,
I dunno why, I tried any settings but still no luck.
My Shazam wont recognize any song never and never...

As you can see in my screenshot, I played Happy - Pharrell Williams forsome minutes with auto-shazam on. My audio input settings are: internal mic on, input volume above 50%.
But nothing happen still...
Can you help me?
Tks a lot

 

[nicroma]

Hi there,
I dunno why, I tried any settings but still no luck.
My Shazam wont recognize any song never and never...
Image
As you can see in my screenshot, I played Happy - Pharrell Williams forsome minutes with auto-shazam on. My audio input settings are: internal mic on, input volume above 50%.
But nothing happen still...
Can you help me?
Tks a lot

Got enough plugins running?