Four months ago, my wife finally decided enough was enough with her Motorola RAZR 2, that ultra-thin flip phone with the touch screen on the outside. Motorola makes nice phones (my ROKR Slider was still in top condition) but this was a real piece of crap. So we went to US Cellular (where you have to go to get service outside of town out here) and told them she needed a new phone. She didn't want a free phone, she wanted something at least as good as the RAZR 2 when it was new.
We both left with new phones that day. The best deal they had on decent phones was a BOGO on the Samsung Acclaim, a touch-screen slider running Google's Android Linux operating system. This wasn't a proper cell phone, it's a handheld computer with, among other things, a phone program. And in addition to a cell phone antenna, it's got GPS, a camera, an accel... uh, it knows it's moving and in what direction, and a magne... uh, it knows which direction it's pointing. And a 3 megapixel camera.
But the really neat thing about an Android phone, like an iPhone, it has a Market where you can add new apps. Most of them are free, but there are some that cost real money. The best things in Android are free, just like anything else, I suppose, but US Cellular gave each of us a $20 gift card to use on the Android Market. Because it's a Google Checkout gift card, the first thing I did was try to buy The Beatles: Rock Band on a Google Checkout site. It didn't work. So I started buying apps. And not just any apps, stuff I wanted for various reasons.
Here are the apps I bought, in the order I bought them, what they do, and why I paid for them.
Aldiko Premium ($2.99)
This paid version of the Aldiko eBook reader removes the ads that would show up in Aldiko from time to time. The ads never showed up in the books themselves, or even your bookshelf. It only ever showed ads when you were browsing its virtual bookstore. So this paid app is really a donation, but when you consider how awesome it is to have your books on your cell phone (handheld computer, whatever) I think it was worth donating to the developers.
ASTRO File Manager ($3.99)
My most expensive purchase. The "File Viewer" that comes with Android sucks balls, and I previously tried the file manager by EStrong. It had some nice features, but once I tried the free ASTRO, I was converted. Unfortunately, while EStrong is free, ASTRO displays an annoying banner ad on the bottom all the time. This gets in the way, but more importantly, I just wanted to support a good product. This file manager lets you move files around, and includes a task manager. Good stuff.
Overkill ($0.99)
The first of two games I bought, and the price is misleading. I bought it on sale. It's a side scrolling space shooter that you can control by tilting the phone. It's hell hard and I bought it on a whim. I rarely play it, but it runs great on the Acclaim (which I understand is an entry-level phone), which can't be said for Angry Birds, a more popular phone game. So part of this purchase was impulse, and another part was to reward the developer for making efficient code.
TxtPad ($1.00)
Finally, an app that doesn't have a price ending in 9. Does anybody even fall for that gimmick anymore, or is it just expected? Anyway, for being a handheld computer with a hardware keyboard, Android doesn't have a text editor. The free version of TxtPad is very nice and doesn't have ads, but I bought TxtPad for the extra features (editing stuff, nothing essential) and because I figured I'd get a lot of use out of it.
Solitaire for Android ($0.99)
One of the first things I did when I got this thing was download a ton of Solitaire apps. There were a lot of stinkers, but this one stood out. I kept the ad-supported one for a while, always intending to pay to remove the ads. After a few purchases, I wanted to get this one before I ran out of money (which wouldn't happen for weeks).
Droid Talk Pro ($0.99)
This text-to-speech toy has been a hit with every child I've shown it to and even a few adults. Type in some text and it will say it. You can add a British accent, and a slider controls the pitch. It never sounds unlike a robot, but it's decent. The free version had an ad, I think, and the paid version will let you make anything it can say into a ringtone. Both versions have common phrases you can tap to make it say, I suppose if you have a sore throat. The app also features a translator, anything you type into it can be translated into a dozen or so (maybe more?) languages, and it will speak them. It also has speech-to-text (-to-speech) so you could carry on a conversation with a foreigner, if they speak into it and you translate it back to English. So this may be the most useful app here. (Not sure if the translator is available in the free version or not.)
Ultra Keyboard ($2.79)
Pro-tip: The default touch keyboard sucks. You want to replace it ASAP if you want to use your screen to type anything. I tried SlideIT, which lets you trace across the keyboard, and I didn't like its accuracy. I then tried SwiftKey, which claimed to predict the next word you were going to type. That was nice, but it didn't work in some strange places, e.g. text messaging. So that got uninstalled in a big hurry. Ultra has all the features. It has the keyboard tracer, and it actually works! I have yet to warm to the feature, but it being accurate helps a lot. It has text prediction, which isn't as accurate as Swift's, but since it's dictionary-based and not habit-based, it pulls stupid guesses a lot less. I mean it may not be as accurate, but its guesses make sense. Oh, and they come up when using the physical keyboard as well. It has another feature the Acclaim isn't powerful enough to use: It'll activate your camera and let you see what's in front of your phone, I guess so you can text and walk without running into stuff. Also, it will calibrate your screen, have you type something, so it can correct your mistakes better. I can't say enough nice things about this app. It's the one keyboard on Android Market worth paying for, and it isn't even the most expensive.
Spark ($1.50)
The only other evenly-priced app I bought. Spark is an Xbox Live client for Android that lets you send and receive messages from fellow gamers. You can also see their gaming history (and your own). It's very nice. It used to be free, but Microsoft changed the way Xbox Live worked (around the time they released the new Dashboard for the console) and it broke the app. Since the new Windows Mobile phones do Xbox Live stuff, I imagine Microsoft is gonna fight this guy some more. I don't know how successful he's gonna be keeping this app running, but I enjoyed it before and wanted to help out. (Didn't have a choice -- there is no free version. But I would have paid either way.)
Tapatalk ($2.99)
A forum interface for Android. This replaces the frontend you see on Internet message boards with one familiar to Android and lets you read and post messages through it. A free version lets you read, but not post. The catch is that the forum owner has to specifically enable Tapatalk access, and 99% of them haven't. And I can't find any forums worth posting on in its directory. Still, I've been calling for an app like this for the better part of a decade (albeit for PCs) so I felt obligated to support somebody who was trying to make that happen. Hopefully it works out for him.
Chandroid ($0.99)
Like Tapatalk, this is an Android frontend to various image boards (channels, as they're known in Japan, where the concept apparently originated), including the infamous 4chan. I really only got this for shits & giggles because I had $1.47 left and nothing to spend it on. /b/, the "random" board on 4chan, is literally the crotch of the Internet, but 4chan itself has its purposes. I like to look on /wg/ for wallpapers, for example. (And no, I'm not above looking to see what's on /s/.) Anyway, Chandroid provides access to another app called Meme Maker (memes are Internet fads) that makes funny pictures. I see great things in this app's future. Chandroid itself is kinda slow, but do the math... image board... cell phone Internet... it's not a smart combination.
Whew! I didn't do a very good job selling some of these apps, did I? Well, the money wasn't really mine to start with, and I couldn't do anything else with it, but buy Android apps. If I didn't have the gift card, would I have bought any of these? Probably not. However, I did buy LauncherPro Plus, which wasn't listed because it's not on the Android Market. Google takes a third of Market purchases, and either LP didn't want to share, or they didn't want to raise their price to include Google's take. In any case, it had to be bought with PayPal, and I actually ponied up $3.99 out of my checking account to buy that.
For those of you with Android phones and thin wallets, here are some cheap alternatives:
Aldiko Premium >> Aldiko. The free version does everything the paid version does. Just spread the word about it, they ask for that more than they ask for donations on their Facebook page.
ASTRO >> EStrongs. EStrongs isn't a bad file manager by any stretch of the imagination. Or get ASTRO and deal with the ads.
Overkill >> Any Android game, there are tons.
TxtPad >> TxtPad. The free version is fine.
Solitaire for Android >> Solitaire for Android. Deal with the ads... or use one of the other Solitaire apps.
Droid Talk Pro >> Droid Talk. The free version still talks and is just as big a hit with the under-five-feet-tall crowd.
Ultra Keyboard >> Ultra Keyboard Demo. I forget what the limitations are. But if the demo doesn't convince you that $2.79 isn't too much to upgrade your keyboard, you're probably fine with the default or the slide-out keyboard anyway.
Spark >> Xbox.com in your web browser.
Tapatalk >> Forums in your web browser.
Chandroid >> 4chan in your web browser.
Now, that being said, here are Android's heavy hitters that are just free, in alphabetical order:
Catch (free!)
This app takes notes, pictures, and scans barcodes, and syncs with Catch.com so you can see the stuff on your PC. You gotta tell it to sync though. Never mind the pictures and the barcodes, just imagine your favorite multiplayer game and imagine "Notepad multiplayer" and you'll have a good idea.
Dropbox (free!)
Lets you download files on your computer's Dropbox folder. It's not a proper sync app though as you can only upload and download, and it's not automatic. (Not that you'd want it to be, but some people...)
Google Sky Map (free!)
My second-most-impressive app. People just love this thing. Point it at the sky and it will tell you what stars are what. It's a planetarium in your hand. You can even see what stars are below the horizon. It's pretty f***ing amazing.
Our Groceries (free!)
Multi"player" shopping list. You make a shopping list, and your partner can see it as they shop. You can even watch as they cross stuff off. Loads of useful features. Ads. Shame there's not an ad-free version. I would have paid for this.
Photoshop Express (free!)
What costs about a thousand bucks on the PC is legitimately free on Android. Okay, this doesn't have even 1% of the features of the real Photoshop, but it lets you touch up photos, and once you learn it (doesn't take long) you can turn crappy cell phone camera pics into pics that look like they were shot with an expensive camera. I do this by bumping up the saturation a hair, the exposure up or down a hair depending on the image, and messing with contrast. It does a lot!
Scoreboard (free!)
Sports fan? This app from Google asks you your favorite teams from each sport/division and notifies you when they start a game and the final score. I'm not even into sports, but I do have opinions on certain teams, and I like to know if they win or lose. (Does that make sense?)
Simple Spreadsheet (free!)
Another app I'd pay for. I use this for data entry at work. Think Microsoft Excel minus all the bells and whistles.
The Weather Channel (free! came with the Acclaim!)
Weather data for as many cities as I want. Need I say more? Oh, and with GPS enabled, it'll follow you on the road, giving current and future weather info wherever you go.
TweetDeck (free!)
I saved the best for last. Or the alphabet did. Whatever. Anyway, forget Twitter and Facebook apps and forget about accessing them in the Browser. TweetDeck rolls your social networks (Twitter, Facebook... and a couple others if you use them) into one social timeline. You get a second timeline for Mentions/Directs (Twitter) and Notifications (Facebook) and you can add timelines based on searches (e.g. I could search for Rockband and add the result as a timeline, and every time somebody mentions Rockband, it shows up. This is a resource hog so I don't do it, though).
So, as I said, the best apps are free, but if you have money to burn, hopefully this helps!
Showing posts with label Android. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Android. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Android song identifier testing: Shazam vs. SoundHound
Test Purpose:
Song ID software for Android devices, head-to-head competition. Both programs allow five IDs a month for free, and cost $4-5 for the full version with unlimited IDs thereafter. (Shazam came with a 7-day trial of the unlimited tagging version, actually.) Both programs will be tested with the same five songs, the same section of each song played for as long as the program requires for identification.
The Android device used will be a Samsung Acclaim, on US Cellular's EVDO (3G speed) network. Voice signal strength is good, 4-5 bars, and the data signal should be good. The Acclaim is running Android 2.1, and is plugged in on its charger for optimal power.
The songs will be played on a generic Dell office computer, the kind that has just one speaker... somewhere in there... this will simulate the poor listening conditions of being in the car or the supermarket or some other awkward situation where identifying a song can be challenging. (The quality of the sound isn't really all that terrible, it's just far from optimal.) The computer runs a 3GHz Pentium 4 with 1GB of RAM, Windows XP Professional Service Pack 3, and Windows Media Player 11. Volume all the way up.
The songs:
GOODNIGHT TECHNOLOGIST by The Main Drag. The drummer for this independent Boston rock band works for Harmonix, who make the Rockband games. "A Jagged Gorgeous Winter," featured in Rock Band 2, might have been too easy. This is the last track on the album "Yours As Fast As Mine". Identification will begin 2:40 into the song. Watch this song performed in Rock Band 2 on YouTube.
JUPITER by Holst from The Planets. I decided to include a classical piece, and this was the first I came to that didn't make me think "a-ha! I know that one!". I don't believe that this is necessarily obscure, but it's not really common, either, at least not in the sense that Beethoven's Fifth (or even Ninth) are. Or "1812 Overture", or "Ride of the Valkyries" or any of that cool stuff. Identification will begin 5:20 into the song. Listen to this song on YouTube.
LOVE ME OR HATE ME by Lady Sovereign. This is a remix featuring Missy Elliot, and I'm going to play her part of the song. I like Lady Sovereign, mostly for her accent, I think, but her songs are fun... her album's pretty easy to hate, and I have to be in a certain mood to listen to it, and I can only listen to a couple songs. I don't think her album or singles were ever very popular, but I expect this should be the least challenging for the software to ID. Identification will begin 0:33 into the song. Listen to this song on YouTube.
MELODY (SALVA NOS VERSION) by Yuki Kajiura. This song was on one of the Noir soundtracks, and is one of the five studio versions of her song "Salva Nos". A song sang in Latin, from Japan, should provide quite a challenge. Identification will begin 1:20 into the song. Listen to this song on YouTube.
STILL ALIVE by Jonathan Coulton from the Portal game, only this is a .mid of that song that somebody played on a MIDI keyboard. This promises to be challenging because its similarity to the original varies. (This is the equivalent of the "hum-it challenge" that people say I should do for SoundHound. I was gonna hum the synth part of Europe's "The Final Countdown" but changed my mind.) Identification will begin at the very start of the song. Listen to this song on YouTube.
I would like to point out that while I may look like a real bastard for picking such obscure songs, the fans of each of these programs make some pretty outlandish claims about their favorite in the Android market -- and when I proposed a few of these songs on an Android forum, I was told by both sides that these choices were "too easy" for their favorite app. Let's see how they fared, shall we?
The test:
Song: Goodnight Technologist
Shazam ID: No match
Notes: none
SoundHound ID: No match
Notes: none
Song: Jupiter
Shazam ID: No match
Notes: Gave up several times immediately after the song started, but it let me retry until it actually did its "Listening... Sending... Matching..." gig.
SoundHound ID: No match
Notes: none
Song: Love Me or Hate Me (Missy Elliot Remix)
Shazam ID: Love Me or Hate Me
Notes: It didn't react at all to Missy Elliot's singing, and only tagged the song after Lady Sovereign came on with the chorus. Also, it tags it as the original, not the remix, and it got the album wrong.
SoundHound ID: Love Me or Hate Me
Notes: Also tags it as the original, but it didn't wait until Lady Sovereign came on to make the tag, so it actually recognized Missy Elliot's singing as the Lady Sovereign song, so technically, it did tag the remix.
Song: Melody
Shazam ID: No match
Notes: It came to the conclusion that it didn't recognize this song a lot faster than the first three tests.
SoundHound ID: Salva Nos
Notes: It tagged the third or fourth version of Yuki Kajiura's epic as the fifth version, I assume based on the lyrics.
Song: Still Alive (MIDI)
Shazam ID: No match
Notes: Refused several times to try this song -- must have told it to retry a dozen times.
SoundHound ID: No match
Notes: None
Shazam final thoughts: This thing is a real piece of work. Half the time it doesn't even attempt to tag the song, it just says no. But at least it doesn't force close or anything, one click makes it try again... and again... and again. Since I have unlimited use of this thing, I'm going to throw some more popular tunes at it. This is not officially part of the test, I just want to find its limits... because I can. Played Europe's "The Final Countdown", and after refusing a dozen times, it showed me the correct artist and title, but it got the album (and album cover) wrong. OK, "Crazy B***h" by Buckcherry, it didn't refuse, and got all the facts right, so far as I can tell. It similarly got "Prayer of the Refugee" by Rise Against. And it recognized what is probably Yuki Kajiura's most popular song, "Key of the Twilight", but did not know the album name (of the version I have, or the soundtrack the original comes from -- .hack//SIGN). This app is kinda pretty, but it likes to vibrate a lot. (Ringer is on full.) It vibrates randomly as it listens, and it vibrates when it's got something (or nothing) for you.
SoundHound final thoughts: SH is a little nicer than Shazam in presentation; my only gripe is that I like Shazam's blue theme better than SH's yellow. SH's pie chart is nicer as well, as it starts from the 12 o'clock position rather than the 1 o'clock (WTF's up with that?) and it finishes its test before the pie chart fills, as opposed to well after. And SH never flat-out refused to make a match. Lastly, it shows a volume meter that shows how well it can hear the source, so you can adjust your positioning if you can. SH doesn't give an unlimited trial, but it doesn't count its failures against the user, so I have 3 more IDs left before I have to wait 30 days (or until October, however it does it), so I'm going to throw some songs at it. I'm going to be harder on it, because it has already proven itself to be more resourceful than Shazam. It recognized "Cry Little Sister" by Seasons After almost immediately, a song I haven't heard of, but my wife got. It recognized "Sing Along" by the Blue Man Group featuring Dave Matthews (though it didn't identify Dave Matthews as being involved). It failed to recognize an early demo by Evanescence called "You" that was the subject of some controversy when some fans built a hoax around it, saying the band didn't want people to hear the song, or some such mess (which was later proven false). But that was a cheap shot at the program, I would have had to have been very impressed if it identified that. Lastly, it identified "Atonement" by Parabelle, an independent lite rock group fronted by former Evans Blue vocalist Kevin Matisyn. Also, after the fifth successful tag, it prompted me to pay for the full version, or continue using the lite version, which would be reloaded with five more credits "next month" (in four days? Or 30? 31?), but until then, could be manually searched for lyrics.
Conclusion: Shazam can identify popular songs, but it utterly fails to recognize anything remotely obscure. It does give you seven days of unlimited tagging for free, so you have plenty of time to play around with it and see if it's worth your money. SoundHound is a little more resourceful, and has a nicer interface, although Shazam gives you more things to do once you've ID'd a song. Emailing, Tweeting, or Facebook'ing the information, there's a whole list. SoundHound pretty much links to the lyrics, if they're in its database, and YouTube, though the rest may have been buried in the menus. I cannot wholeheartedly recommend either app, and would go so far as to say that many of the posts on the Android market in the comments for these apps in support of the other one are false, and possibly planted by people with something to gain from the other one being purchased. Neither of these apps are nearly as good as people say they are. Then again, their phone's mic could have better noise cancellation, or perhaps other conditions were different. But mine were more than fair considering the magic some will say these apps can work. Based on what I have seen, if someone told me they were walking down the streets of Manhattan, and saw a guy whistling a tune across the street, and they held up their phone, and either Shazam or SoundHound identified it as Frank Sinatra, I wouldn't believe them even if their tongue were made of solid gold and notarized. If I buy one, it's going to be SoundHound, just because it's more resourceful. But it's not going to be because I think it's worth the money; Googling the lyrics has always worked for me. It's going to be because US Cellular gives customers who buy Android phones, $20 gift cards for the Android Market. They don't work for anything else -- I tried. If, by November, when my gift card expires, I may buy SoundHound. No promises though.
PS -- I rated each app on the Android market a number of stars equivalent to the number of songs it got right. I show up there as Nathan or Dark Reality, I forget which, but I mention the test, and will update my comments with a bit.ly to this post.
Song ID software for Android devices, head-to-head competition. Both programs allow five IDs a month for free, and cost $4-5 for the full version with unlimited IDs thereafter. (Shazam came with a 7-day trial of the unlimited tagging version, actually.) Both programs will be tested with the same five songs, the same section of each song played for as long as the program requires for identification.
The Android device used will be a Samsung Acclaim, on US Cellular's EVDO (3G speed) network. Voice signal strength is good, 4-5 bars, and the data signal should be good. The Acclaim is running Android 2.1, and is plugged in on its charger for optimal power.
The songs will be played on a generic Dell office computer, the kind that has just one speaker... somewhere in there... this will simulate the poor listening conditions of being in the car or the supermarket or some other awkward situation where identifying a song can be challenging. (The quality of the sound isn't really all that terrible, it's just far from optimal.) The computer runs a 3GHz Pentium 4 with 1GB of RAM, Windows XP Professional Service Pack 3, and Windows Media Player 11. Volume all the way up.
The songs:
GOODNIGHT TECHNOLOGIST by The Main Drag. The drummer for this independent Boston rock band works for Harmonix, who make the Rockband games. "A Jagged Gorgeous Winter," featured in Rock Band 2, might have been too easy. This is the last track on the album "Yours As Fast As Mine". Identification will begin 2:40 into the song. Watch this song performed in Rock Band 2 on YouTube.
JUPITER by Holst from The Planets. I decided to include a classical piece, and this was the first I came to that didn't make me think "a-ha! I know that one!". I don't believe that this is necessarily obscure, but it's not really common, either, at least not in the sense that Beethoven's Fifth (or even Ninth) are. Or "1812 Overture", or "Ride of the Valkyries" or any of that cool stuff. Identification will begin 5:20 into the song. Listen to this song on YouTube.
LOVE ME OR HATE ME by Lady Sovereign. This is a remix featuring Missy Elliot, and I'm going to play her part of the song. I like Lady Sovereign, mostly for her accent, I think, but her songs are fun... her album's pretty easy to hate, and I have to be in a certain mood to listen to it, and I can only listen to a couple songs. I don't think her album or singles were ever very popular, but I expect this should be the least challenging for the software to ID. Identification will begin 0:33 into the song. Listen to this song on YouTube.
MELODY (SALVA NOS VERSION) by Yuki Kajiura. This song was on one of the Noir soundtracks, and is one of the five studio versions of her song "Salva Nos". A song sang in Latin, from Japan, should provide quite a challenge. Identification will begin 1:20 into the song. Listen to this song on YouTube.
STILL ALIVE by Jonathan Coulton from the Portal game, only this is a .mid of that song that somebody played on a MIDI keyboard. This promises to be challenging because its similarity to the original varies. (This is the equivalent of the "hum-it challenge" that people say I should do for SoundHound. I was gonna hum the synth part of Europe's "The Final Countdown" but changed my mind.) Identification will begin at the very start of the song. Listen to this song on YouTube.
I would like to point out that while I may look like a real bastard for picking such obscure songs, the fans of each of these programs make some pretty outlandish claims about their favorite in the Android market -- and when I proposed a few of these songs on an Android forum, I was told by both sides that these choices were "too easy" for their favorite app. Let's see how they fared, shall we?
The test:
Song: Goodnight Technologist
Shazam ID: No match
Notes: none
SoundHound ID: No match
Notes: none
Song: Jupiter
Shazam ID: No match
Notes: Gave up several times immediately after the song started, but it let me retry until it actually did its "Listening... Sending... Matching..." gig.
SoundHound ID: No match
Notes: none
Song: Love Me or Hate Me (Missy Elliot Remix)
Shazam ID: Love Me or Hate Me
Notes: It didn't react at all to Missy Elliot's singing, and only tagged the song after Lady Sovereign came on with the chorus. Also, it tags it as the original, not the remix, and it got the album wrong.
SoundHound ID: Love Me or Hate Me
Notes: Also tags it as the original, but it didn't wait until Lady Sovereign came on to make the tag, so it actually recognized Missy Elliot's singing as the Lady Sovereign song, so technically, it did tag the remix.
Song: Melody
Shazam ID: No match
Notes: It came to the conclusion that it didn't recognize this song a lot faster than the first three tests.
SoundHound ID: Salva Nos
Notes: It tagged the third or fourth version of Yuki Kajiura's epic as the fifth version, I assume based on the lyrics.
Song: Still Alive (MIDI)
Shazam ID: No match
Notes: Refused several times to try this song -- must have told it to retry a dozen times.
SoundHound ID: No match
Notes: None
Shazam final thoughts: This thing is a real piece of work. Half the time it doesn't even attempt to tag the song, it just says no. But at least it doesn't force close or anything, one click makes it try again... and again... and again. Since I have unlimited use of this thing, I'm going to throw some more popular tunes at it. This is not officially part of the test, I just want to find its limits... because I can. Played Europe's "The Final Countdown", and after refusing a dozen times, it showed me the correct artist and title, but it got the album (and album cover) wrong. OK, "Crazy B***h" by Buckcherry, it didn't refuse, and got all the facts right, so far as I can tell. It similarly got "Prayer of the Refugee" by Rise Against. And it recognized what is probably Yuki Kajiura's most popular song, "Key of the Twilight", but did not know the album name (of the version I have, or the soundtrack the original comes from -- .hack//SIGN). This app is kinda pretty, but it likes to vibrate a lot. (Ringer is on full.) It vibrates randomly as it listens, and it vibrates when it's got something (or nothing) for you.
SoundHound final thoughts: SH is a little nicer than Shazam in presentation; my only gripe is that I like Shazam's blue theme better than SH's yellow. SH's pie chart is nicer as well, as it starts from the 12 o'clock position rather than the 1 o'clock (WTF's up with that?) and it finishes its test before the pie chart fills, as opposed to well after. And SH never flat-out refused to make a match. Lastly, it shows a volume meter that shows how well it can hear the source, so you can adjust your positioning if you can. SH doesn't give an unlimited trial, but it doesn't count its failures against the user, so I have 3 more IDs left before I have to wait 30 days (or until October, however it does it), so I'm going to throw some songs at it. I'm going to be harder on it, because it has already proven itself to be more resourceful than Shazam. It recognized "Cry Little Sister" by Seasons After almost immediately, a song I haven't heard of, but my wife got. It recognized "Sing Along" by the Blue Man Group featuring Dave Matthews (though it didn't identify Dave Matthews as being involved). It failed to recognize an early demo by Evanescence called "You" that was the subject of some controversy when some fans built a hoax around it, saying the band didn't want people to hear the song, or some such mess (which was later proven false). But that was a cheap shot at the program, I would have had to have been very impressed if it identified that. Lastly, it identified "Atonement" by Parabelle, an independent lite rock group fronted by former Evans Blue vocalist Kevin Matisyn. Also, after the fifth successful tag, it prompted me to pay for the full version, or continue using the lite version, which would be reloaded with five more credits "next month" (in four days? Or 30? 31?), but until then, could be manually searched for lyrics.
Conclusion: Shazam can identify popular songs, but it utterly fails to recognize anything remotely obscure. It does give you seven days of unlimited tagging for free, so you have plenty of time to play around with it and see if it's worth your money. SoundHound is a little more resourceful, and has a nicer interface, although Shazam gives you more things to do once you've ID'd a song. Emailing, Tweeting, or Facebook'ing the information, there's a whole list. SoundHound pretty much links to the lyrics, if they're in its database, and YouTube, though the rest may have been buried in the menus. I cannot wholeheartedly recommend either app, and would go so far as to say that many of the posts on the Android market in the comments for these apps in support of the other one are false, and possibly planted by people with something to gain from the other one being purchased. Neither of these apps are nearly as good as people say they are. Then again, their phone's mic could have better noise cancellation, or perhaps other conditions were different. But mine were more than fair considering the magic some will say these apps can work. Based on what I have seen, if someone told me they were walking down the streets of Manhattan, and saw a guy whistling a tune across the street, and they held up their phone, and either Shazam or SoundHound identified it as Frank Sinatra, I wouldn't believe them even if their tongue were made of solid gold and notarized. If I buy one, it's going to be SoundHound, just because it's more resourceful. But it's not going to be because I think it's worth the money; Googling the lyrics has always worked for me. It's going to be because US Cellular gives customers who buy Android phones, $20 gift cards for the Android Market. They don't work for anything else -- I tried. If, by November, when my gift card expires, I may buy SoundHound. No promises though.
PS -- I rated each app on the Android market a number of stars equivalent to the number of songs it got right. I show up there as Nathan or Dark Reality, I forget which, but I mention the test, and will update my comments with a bit.ly to this post.
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