iPhone applications have plenty of uses other than just merely providing us with hours of inane entertainment all the time. It seems like the Shazam application for the Apple devices that traditionally has been designed to identify songs played on TV or radio or any other external device, like Sony’s TrackID or Samsung’s MusicID now has a new feature. Actually it seems like it always had it, we were too busy having fun to notice.

Just like Sony Ericsson’s version Shazam records audio via the handset’s microphone and sends the information to its database and tries to match the patter with the corresponding songs to relay the information about the artist, song etc. back to the handset. It seems like tests that were conducted revealed that Shazam was unable to detect songs when recorded from live performances as they aren’t always going to be exactly like the recorded version. So if you happen to be watching a live performance of an artist and Shazam does find the track, well... you know they’re trying to pull a Milli Vanilli.

[The New York Times]