During WWDC21, Apple announced that the upcoming updates will include a new development resource for leveraging audio recognition features of Shazam to third-party apps. We couldn't be more excited about this, and we’re ready to share everything we know about ShazamKit.

What is Shazam?

Launched in 2008, Shazam made quite the name for itself in the app world as the pioneering music recognition tool, which lets you instantly identify songs that are playing in your environment with just a push of a button. Hear a song on the radio and want to know who sang it? Shazam it.

Since its purchase by Apple in 2017, Shazam’s core functionality has found its way into iOS and now it’s coming to third-party apps (like ours, and maybe yours too) in the form of ShazamKit.

What can ShazamKit do?

With the ShazamKit API, developers will be able to integrate Shazam's music recognition software into their apps. There are three parts to this new framework:

1. Shazam catalog recognition

Shazam catalog recognition is what you immediately think of when you think of Shazam. It allows developers to tap into Shazam’s technology to identify a song that’s playing in the environment and then fetch the song’s metadata, including the title, artist, genre, album art, and so on.

2. Custom catalog recognition

In addition to Shazam’s extensive catalog, ShazamKit allows developers to create a custom catalog of songs which users can then match against. This enables apps to recognise the developer’s own audio as opposed to just commercial music. This can also give audio content an additional interactive layer, synced activities or other second-screen experiences.

3. Library management

After a user has identified a song with your app via ShazamKit, they can then save the song in their Shazam library. The library can be found in the Shazam app for those who have installed it, those who haven’t will be able to access it by long pressing on the new button dedicated to Shazam in the Control Centre.

What else?

ShazamKit is not only available on Apple’s own devices. On top of the upcoming iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, and watchOS, Apple has also provided documentation for integrating ShazamKit into Android apps.

To learn more about ShazamKit, watch Apple’s announcement video from WWDC21 or visit the official webpage.

Why is Team DWR excited for ShazamKit?

We’re super excited about the prospects of integrating ShazamKit into one of our in-house products, Haptik.

Haptik is a metronome app that sends silent haptic beats to your wrist via Apple Watch, so you can practice to the rhythm without the distracting beep or clicking sound of a traditional metronome. ShazamKit can potentially take this offering up several notches, by empowering users to identify a song they hear and instantaneously find its tempo, so they can jam to any tune they come across.

Is ShazamKit music to your ears?

There’s so much you can do with ShazamKit! If you think your app could benefit from audio recognition features, we want to hear from you. Get in touch via hello@digitalworkroom.co.uk.