I hesitate to confuse the picture, since the majority are saying Soundhound (SHND), but after buying and experimenting extensively with both, I prefer Shazam (SHAZ).
I just want a simple tool to identify songs so I find all the extra stuff in SHND to be distracting and I really don't like the way that all that stuff scrolls along the bottom of the screen on the default startup page. SHAZ is less fully featured than SHND but I also find it cleaner and simpler in use.
For speed then I agree, SHND is noticeably quicker. For data use SHND is actually more expensive than SHAZ. My measurements showed a SHAZ recognition using about 100kb of network data and a SHND recognition using about 200kb. For me this is important since a fair amount of my use is when abroad and hence roaming so data is a limited commodity.
For accuracy I find them about the same, SHAZ sometimes recognises things SHND doesn't and vice versa. If I was really pressed though I'd give the edge to SHAZ here.
I haven't deleted SHND from my iPhone but it is in a folder on the last page of my apps screens as a backup if SHAZ fails to recognise something, or on the off chance that I want to use the "hum a tune" feature of SHND that I don't think is in SHAZ, but SHAZ is the one I keep in my main Utils folder on the first page of my home screen.
Ultimately both are truely amazing technology that I am totally in awe of (and I'm a computer scientist). I suspect a lot of people have no real concept of how incredible this stuff is in terms of the technical challenges, especially offered to consumers at these prices.
- Julian
