News · 12 May 2011 · MTW Editorial Team
Shazam has just released the paid version of their music tagging application for Windows Phone 7 today. The good news is that WP7 users now have access to most of the services features which were only available on other platforms before. But but the bad news is that the free version will no longer offer unlimited tagging unless the app was installed before May 2011:
UPDATE:It looks like Shazam really wants you to pay for their stuff. After updating the free Shazam version I was no longer able to pin the application to the home screen. Strange right? So the solution would probably to uninstall it, loose the unlimited tagging feature and re-install it right? Well, I decided to just reboot the phone just in-case it fixes the the tile issue…the app has now vanished from my phone! According to the Marketplace it’s still installed on my phone..but It no longer shows up in the installed applications list!
UPDATE 2: This is apparently Microsoft’s fault and not Shazam’s. The Makretplace is currently having issues with application updates and installations. The Shazam app is now located in the Games Hub and other applications are also affected by this problem. I was able to replicate this by installing another app and saw it appear in the Games hub instead of the applications list. This seems to be a random issue though: I tried to install a third app afterwards and it popped up in the correct location.
Here’s the list of features available in Shazam Encore (for $5.99)
Upgrade your music journey with Encore:
– Unlimited tagging, so don’t miss a music moment – tag as often as you like
– Identify what song is playing and buy the track direct on Zune Marketplace
– Get Music Recommendations to discover similar music
– View lyrics and sing along to tagged tracks
– Read album reviews, artist biographies and discographies
– Watch YouTube videos for tagged artists from within the App
Keep in mind that Microsoft is going to natively offer a similar music tagging service for free with Bing Audio later this year in Mango.
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