Tag iPhone

Yea… I cannot start off telling you all about recognition redefined without.. first giving you a story about how I came to learn of this amazing tool to battle all tools!

“Ooh! What’s that playing on the radio! Wow, let me see… (Pulls out iPhone4, loads up search and types in shaz – Select Shazam and select “Tag”) [listening… listening… listening…]

?!?!?WTF?!?!? I’m limited to 5 per tags per month?!? Okay fine.. sure that was a complete surprise, but I’ll download the pay version and finish tagging my song there. 

HI IM SHAZAM AND EVEN IF YOU PAY YOU STILL GET ADS – JUST LIKE CLASSMATES.COM  Seriously?!   Yea, #fail multiplied by #fail equals me going to look for another solution.   And it was then (that I complained about this on Twitter) that @jeffcoffee suggested I check out SoundHound!  

Okay, let me first off set the disclaimer:

There is a ‘5 per month’ limit on the Free version of SoundHound as well, but I was already in the market for a new product which clearly was NOT Shazam.

So, I load up the app and I get splashed with this screen

First of all, let me just say.   Whoa!  I decide to click “Tap Here” and I proceed to sing the Beatles “The Yellow Submarine” (I did consider filming me doing that… for your sake, I didn’t ;))

Lo and behold shortly into the song, BAM! It recognized it from my very own (at this point out of tune voice)  Wow! I should share this feat with someone shouldn’t I!? Ooh! Twitter and FB integration!  Yea, that’s the cost of doing business though.    But what if I don’t know the name of the song… all I can really remember is an artist…

With the ease of knowing ‘words’ I simply say a song name or an artist name by clicking on the “Title or Artist” section and bam! I’m presented with Michael Jackson!

And while it is very nice that they have the settings easy enough to configure inside of the Settings section… the following is something I tested (both from my iPhone and my iPad) Something I had wished Shazam could do.. but never did, and frankly I don’t care if they ever support it at this point!

Suppose the following situation exists:   You’re listening to a song out of iTunes/iPod on your device, or even listening to something on Pandora! And you’re saying “Man, I wish I had the lyrics to that song, or knew what album it was off of, or other details” etc etc..  So you go and launch Shazam and immediately all sound CEASES to operate.  WTF?!? That’s kind of dismissing!

I welcome you to this feature in SoundHound called “Now Playing!”   Yes, this screen shot is from my iPad because it looks soooooo much cooler in that sense ;) But it works JUST as well on the iPhone (I guarantee :))

And the last thing I’d like to share from my playing with this, is the “What’s Hot” “UnderPlayed” and “Just found by Users” options.  As you can see the iPad version looks a lot sweeter than the iPhone version… :)

And last but not least, I’d like to share some of the ‘highlights’ mentioned from their actual website which incase I missed any of this, you have it here! :)

	Free Version of SoundHound Now Available for iOS and Android Highlights Blazing fast music identification Sing & Hum recognition Voice-directed music search In-app lyrics Special on iPad: Big, beautiful lyrics and music videos The SoundHound Ticker
Version 3.3.1 for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad Version 2.0.1 for Android – SoundHound (free): 5 IDs per month Available on the App Store – SoundHound ?: unlimited Available on the App Store

Oh, and let’s not ignore the one feature (which seemed to be overlooked in too many ways in the features…)

Instantly launch a Pandora Station!!!

Okay..  I think that is enough… I’ll let you tell me your favorite functions, features and otherwise.   If you found this useful at all, and if you kick the ‘”Shazam” habit, let me know.  If you’re from Shazam I’d love to hear your feedback as well. :) 

Who can relate to this experience? You’re out using your iPhone for whatever reason, perhaps you’re jamming away to tunes, sitting on calls all day long, or simply just ‘using’ it and you find your battery life has severely diminished.   I know what you efficiency zealots will say “You know, you can turn off this feature and that feature, and this and that and that! and it’ll extend your battery life!” Yea, kthxbye! Seriously. If I’m using my location feature and it’s draining my device, turning it off defeats the entire purpose!

Well, inspired by my good friend Louis Gray in his post: How I Stopped Worrying About Powering Up My iPhone 3G I’m writing this because I wanted to make sure those who missed this absolutely amazing-ness, don’t miss it!

This is something I’ve been looking for from Apple for some time, but I never got around to actually trying to search or solve my problem – and now.. now I have, especially as I tend to charge my phone 3-4 times a day from use (Can you say omfg power user? ;))

Our good friends at Mophie bring us the Juice Pack and the Juice Pack Air!  Not only do they double as power enhancing batteries but they also provide a case for you to use! Considering the scratches on my iPhone and my eventual need to get a case (not to mention how my phone partly cuts into me in its sharp bits… Well, there you go, killing two birds, one apple!)

To add to it, they even have a special twitter promotion available, whereby tweeting something about them, following them – will enter you into a chance to win their Juice Pack Air! a $79.99 value.. I’ll take free!

Incase also happens to offer something they call a “Power Slider” but frankly if you look at their website you may have a pain of a time trying to find it as it’s not really elevated to the surface in its ease of finding (Had to search to find it, and even then it wasn’t so intuitive) Which is likely why Louis and others have to resort to looking for it on Amazon like here Incase Power Slider for iPhone 3G – Black (EC20003).

Now while I personally like the look of the back of this particular device with the little lights as you can see in this image above – I frankly am liking more and more the Mophie Juice pack units already mentioned.   But feel pride in knowing when you have a constantly dying iPhone, don’t worry about changing your habits as much when you can rely upon an additional power source to aide in whatever you do!  So get out there and get yourself some Apple Juice!

WTF? Apple wouldn’t seriously say that to AT&T would they?!

I’m sure you’ve all seen this chart by now!

What they don’t share with you though, is this particular version of the Chart

Wait a minute, I don’t agree with that chart at all! It’s not $175 to cancel if you have existing service, it can’t be cheaper than it is to “Upgrade” as Apple has supplied pricing, can it be?

You’re right, I’m absolutely sorry for misleading you.  You are correct, AT&T recently introduced Prorating Cancellation Fees! “AT&T to prorate cancellation fees” So yes, for me at the moment it only costs $150 to cancel which means I have even GREATER Incentive to cancel and obtain new service.

All of this assumes you’d be willing to go so far as to cancel your service in order to obtain the latest and greatest at a lower price.  Yes, that is absolutely correct.  Because I don’t feel I should be penalized to upgrade to the latest hardware by being not only an early adopter/innovator but also by having brand loyalty to Apple and AT&T.

Furthermore, to have ‘paths’ which exist such as making it cheaper to cancel or to have you ‘transfer of service’ to someone else are just ridiculous.

Allow me to elaborate on your “other option”

I recently spoke with the AT&T Retention team and they said that Apple really put the screws to them, putting them in this position whereby it IS in fact cheaper to cancel and get new service than it is to simply provide an honorable upgrade path, so they do have as a semi-out the “Transfer of Service” plan as detailed below. (Taken from Pg13 of Reference Guide)

5.2.
Transfer of Service
Under certain circumstances you can transfer the billing responsibility on an account from the business customer to an End User and vice versa. This transfer of service usually requires that the line move to a new BAN# and a new FAN#.
Key Contacts call the Key Contact Center at:
866-ATT-SMBZ or
866-288-7629
Mon-Fri 7 am – 12 am Eastern
Sat: 9 am – 8 pm Eastern

And all of the naysayers who say that I shouldn’t go so far as to waste AT&T’s resources well beyond the extra $$ so as while the ‘front-end’ cost appears lower, in the long-term as person after person would opt to cancel instead of pony up the $200, that AT&T’s operational costs would well exceed the $200? Well, I say “suck it up, and allow me the upgrade as a Qualified Customer” because frankly I shouldn’t have to jump through hoops, and neither should AT&T.

So to sum it up, what I’m seeing is very clearly this.   Apple (not AT&T) is making me cancel my service in the effort to upgrade to the new Apple 3GS iPhone.  Infact, the incentives to cancel are clearly far better than the reasons to perform an “Early” upgrade.  I’m sorry, but the “Qualified” customers option should include people who are loyal to the brand, to the solution and to the industry; instead of simply saying “Hey you guy who buys our products? Suck on this and pay an extra $200, kthxbye!”