You’re listening to the radio or watching TV and a song comes on that you don’t know. You like the song, but how can you find out what it is? Luckily, there are built in features on your smartphone that allow you to name a song in seconds!
Apple
Starting with the release of iOS 14.2 in 2020, Apple devices offer built in song recognition, just by asking Siri, the built-in digital assistant. In your Siri settings, if you have “Hey Siri” enabled, simply say, “Hey Siri, what song is this?” when a song is playing. Another way to quickly activate Siri is to hold down the Home Screen button iPhones with a home button or hold down the power button on iPhone 9 and later.
You’ll get a screen that Siri is listening and then a screen will pop up with the name of the song.
To see a history of songs you have identified, download the Shazam app from the App Store. To see more detailed instructions, check out this helpful article from Apple.
Android
On Android phones, there is a similar method. Touch and hold the home button or say “Hey Google” and then ask, “What’s this song?”
Google Assistant will name the song and give you options to share the song, watch the video on YouTube, or add to a playlist on YouTube Music. Google has written a helpful article with more detailed instructions.
Use the Google App
You can also identify songs with both iOS devices and Android devices by using the Google app. The neat thing with the Google app is that in addition to identifying a song by playing it, you can also sing or hum it yourself. This is handy in case you have a certain lyric or melody stuck in your head.
Open the Google app and tap on identify song by listening. Another option is to tap on the microphone icon and then tap search for a song.
When I attempted to sing a song, I got a 48% match of the song I was singing.
Then again, my singing voice isn’t the greatest, so you may get better results. I only got a 34% match when I attempted to hum a song.
Have you tried identifying a song with your smartphone? Let us know in the comments!