How To Use Shazam On iPhone Without Downloading The App

Shazam a song identification app built by London-based Shazam Entertainment allows iPhone users to identify music, movies, advertising, and television shows, by playing a short verbal sample using the microphone based on the device. The app acquired by Apple Inc. in 2018 requires users to download the app on their Apple devices.

The introduction of iOS 14.2 by Apple in 2020 came with litany of new features which included some landmark new emoji, like the “frustrated Italian hand gesture” and bubble tea, but a very significant and handy feature that was added was the ability of users to add Shazam song identification to their iPhone Control Center.

But with there a way to save the hassles of downloading the app and that is the purpose of this piece: to give you couple of easy steps to allow users access this wonderful feature right from their lock screen.

Users do not even need to unlock their phones to access Shazam, as this helps in cases where the user is scrambling to identify a song playing on the radio before it stops playing. This step also helps when song lovers play songs with the aid of their headphones.

For iPhone users running iOS 14.2 or higher, the steps below will help you quickly identify the song you want through Shazam, even from the lock screen.

The first step is making sure the ‘Control Center’ is available on your lock screen.

You can make it available by going to Settings > Face ID & Passcode (or Touch ID)

You then scroll down to the section that says, “Allow access when locked”, then make sure that Control Center is toggled on as seen in the picture below:

The next step would be to add Shazam to your Control Center. This is how to do it:

• Click on Settings > Control Center
• Scroll down to the section where you will see “More Controls”, tap the green plus icon next to Music Recognition, then add it to the “Included Controls” list above.
• Proceed to then change its position in the Control Center. To do this, you have to  move it up or down the list. You can click and hold the three bars to the right of the icon.

After this is done, you will be able to see a Shazam icon in the Control Center. Great!

To now access it from your lock screen, you will need to swipe down from the top of the screen on a phone either using a Face ID, or through swiping up from the bottom on a phone with Touch ID.

Click on the Shazam icon therein and turn ‘Music Recognition’ on. Once you do this, the icon will light up and pulse as its listening. After this, a notification will pop up in a few moments showing the song or artist or it gives you a ‘no result was found’ message if the song can’t be gotten.

Shazam can also be used via Siri, Apple’s virtual assistant and this can be very helpful if the user is without the handsfree.

Just follow the same steps above but to use the feature without unlocking the phone, make sure Siri is enabled on your lock screen. If it not enabled on your lock screen, just say something like, ‘Hey Siri, what song is playing?’ to your phone microphone. The Virtual assistant will respond that she is listening and Shazam will give you a notification when the song has been identified.

Note: This method may not allow you enjoy the features on the normal Shazam app. The Shazam app has more exciting features though, some of them having the archive of the songs identified and being able to capture audio while offline and have the app ID the song when you’re back online.

But then a tweak like this would be worth trying especially when you are trying to conserve your phone space.