Shazam launches Windows 8 version of it music discover app

Rating: Perhaps Jim’ll fix my RAZR i version for me

Somehow we don’t see a rush of desktop PC, laptop, netbook and tablets owners installing Shazam so they can hold their device up to a pub’s loudspeakers. Just because Shazam has launched a Microsoft Windows 8 version of its popular music discovery app. However, GoMobile News suspects this has a lot to do with its imminent Windows Phone 8 (Apollo) version. Shazam is, of course, the leading music recognition app but it only recognises commercial tracks. So there’s little point trying to get it to recognise what old rock number the band is currently slaughtering. We reckon that Windows 8 Users will utilise this version of Shazam for viewing tags saved by their mobile phone. If it works on their smartphone, of course. It doesn’t work on our Motorola RAZR i, though.This is the dead giveaway from Shazam … “Microsoft Windows 8 is the first platform to include many elements of the new design, which will be expanded in the coming weeks to other platforms,” the Press blurb says.

An obvious reference to a Windows Phone 8 version if ever we’ve seen one. So what are the elements of the new design?

Well, the new listening screen graphic replaces the stopwatch ‘sweep’ effect with a more colourful Shazam dial of three rotating rings.

The new Shazam design also includes larger artwork for the tags and a richer blue background.

Another feature which appears new to us is the fact that users can get more information about the albums and artists they tag via music reviews and bios.

The app is free but there’s a very heavy advertising presence within the app. We also assume Shazam has done deals with the music labels of the tracks it recognises.

with Microsoft’s new snap view capability in Windows 8, users can multi-task – with two apps running simultaneously. So you can have Shazam and Facebook running side by side, for example.

We expect that feature to show up in the Windows Phone 8 Apollo version, of course.

Now back to our loan Motorola RAZR i (XT890) which is running version 4.0.4 of the Android OS. As opposed to our RAZR (XT910) which is running 4.0.4 too.

Shazam’s tags facility simply doesn’t work on the RAZR i. The stopwatch just keeps sweeping whilst other functions do work.

It’s not a hardware problem with the RAZR i incidentally because the rival Soundhog music recognition app works with it.

Perhaps if we ask really nicely Shazam will fix this bug for us?