Shazam music identification software has finally come out of its mobile support with its first ever desktop app for Mac PCs.
Shazam, the popular mobile app used to identify songs, is expanding its reach to desktops for the first time. The mobile-only app has finally arrived on Mac computers starting Thursday, allowing OS X users to recognize songs, ad, or television clips on or near the computer. The Mac app works almost similar to its mobile counterpart with the automatic and background music recognition feature but is not a fully-fledged app like on mobile.
When Mac users launch Shazam, the software will run in the background and automatically recognize songs, ads or television clips that are played on or near the computer, according to the company's official website. The Mac app is more like a tiny widget that sits on the desktop's menu bar. When a song is detected, Shazam will display a small notification window to tell users what they are listening to.
Shazam does not limit itself as a music identification tool, as the notifications displayed on the screen are interactive. Clicking on the recognized songs, ads or TV shows, the interactive notifications redirect users to the Shazam website on Safari or default browser. The website displays detailed information about the recognized music videos, song lyrics and links to purchase via iTunes, Amazon or Google Play.
"No one has ever really used a computer to do this," Shazam's chief product officer, Daniel Danker, told Mashable. "People Shazam YouTube all the time... they're watching the dancing baby video and there's good music in the background and they Shazam it for the music."
Shazam may be a popular mobile app for most mobile users, but it faces stiff competition from rivals such as SoundCloud. As Wall Street Journal's Nathan Olivarez-Giles wrote after testing the app, Shazam "couldn't recognize about a fifth of what I was streaming."
Shazam for Mac also lacks a premium version like the mobile version but Danker hopes to make the app more streamlined with its other apps on mobile. The app is available for download from Mac App Store and Danker said the company will expand to Windows or the web in the future, according to Mashable.
