Freeware: Midomi. 7 reasons why I love the Midomi app on the Nokia N97(and think it's a better music search tool than Shazam.)

You’re probably aware of these two apps already – again just another highlight.

Shazam and Midomi are similar music discovery engines that are currently free the Ovi Store. Get the app to listen to a piece of music – sends that recording online then immediately gets back to you with the details. Shazam is free to use until 30-11-09 and for a limited time (undisclosed) Midomi is offering a free trial. You should go to the Ovi Store now and try them both whilst they’re still free. (After the promo, Shazam Lite app lets you have some limited features and free tagging)

This post focuses more on Midomi – for Shazam details/screenshots, here’s a post from Daily Mobile

check out my erratic and poor T-Mobile reception at home.

Shazam is quite a prominent name in finding music track details simply based on an audio recording – and it’s pretty good at doing that – saving your track searches and also integrating a music store should you wish to purchase that rack.

Midomi is very similar to Shazam – it does exactly what Shazam does. Search and identify tracks and then some to make it more than just a song recognizer/finder.

7 reasons why I love the Midomi app on the Nokia N97

1. Midomi can recognize humming/singing in addition to the actual proper track itself. I was surprised at how it could do that, -I took it as a compliment when it got my humming/singing correct. ^_^ (Shazam only recognizes the actual track) Both are very accurate – though it is brilliant that Midomi recognize more than just the original, unmodified song.

2. Midomi stops “listening” either:

• after a predetermined time (max about 20s?) or
• when I stop it or
• when it knows it has enough and has recognized the track.

Against a speaker and the real song, Midomi often recognizes early, within 8 seconds. Shazam only stops listening after the full 14seconds (I think it’s 14)

3. Midomi saves my searches – no need to write down what that song was. But Midomi also saves:

• the additional browsing that I’ve done that’s related to that track (see point 5) as well
• noting what day I and  time I searched for that song.
• Saving recordings that weren’t matched – either due to poor reception/or bad recording. This is useful if you hear a track and haven’t got an internet connection – the recording is saved to check back later
• Shazam saves tagged tracks and untagged tracks but all in a single list.

4. Midomi has an abundance of things you can do with the matched track

1. • You can listen to the actual track itself or other tracks that Midomi thought was similar to the recording – really useful if you just hummed a tune that you weren’t exactly sure about.
   • Watch videos using that song – it lists YouTube videos using that song, be it the official video, an acappella cover, parody etc. Opens up browser on a youtube search of that song. Really neat.
   • Mail track details
   • Find lyrics of that song (opens up web browser and a google search for those lyrics)
   • View the album that song belongs to, seeing track list, album review, artist info (then similar options for each new track you browse)
   • You can easily bookmark tracks/albums by clicking on the star
   • You can even listen to other users’ recordings of that same track – their singing/humming/track recording.

5.  Midomi has a nicer looking interface, easier to navigate and more finger friendly (input completely by touch, works only in portrait).

6. If you already know the title/artist/album you can search for them by typing in those details.

7. Midomi connects you a music store – if you want that track, you can purchase it using the Nokia Music Store App . Shazam’s also has Music Store integration, and is slightly better too (though at times temperamental) in that it searches that track at the music store too. Midomi just brought me to the Music Store

Four Three things I liked about Shazam (over Midomi)

There are four features I prefer in Shazam over Midomi: The larger album art (Midomi has a separate option to view a large album art), it works in landscape, better Music Store integration  and the free black/silver theme that comes with the Shazam install. (When you use Shazam, only the black/silver theme works. Midomi’s colour scheme changes with the theme. )

Otherwise, in terms of music searching features, on the current version I used (at time of writing) Midomi on the mobile is a much better music identifying solution.

Suggestions For Midomi

I love how Midomi interacts with tracks/albums – it makes it much more than a music identifier. The only things I could ask for is for Midomi to work in full screen, better integration with the music store and perhaps integrate kinetic scrolling. Both Midomi and Shazam have pretty cool online counterparts (such as Chart listings on topped tags/recently tags/communities) and would be nice to see this integrated in Midomi.

Suggestions for S60 music player app.

There are also so many cues that S60’s music player can take from Midomi –

• big thumb-friendly listings
• Quick bookmarking (great for playlists) – S60’s playlist feature is currently Options>Add to Playlist>Saved/New Playlist. Being able to simply favourite a track by a single tap for later listening is really convenient. – Perhaps then give the user the ability to organize those favourites into playlists.
• Linking to related videos
• Finding track lyrics (if applicable)
• linking to other users with the same songs (maybe not so much for listening to their recording, but could build up some sort of chat app. The Ovi Store’s already got a few random social networking/chat apps and this one could be different in that there’s already something in common – taste in music, “Oh I’m listening to ….”

Tags: 5530, 5800, 5th Edition, Applications, Freeware, Midomi, Midomi Vs Shazam, N97, Nokia, Nokia 5800, Nokia N97, Ovi Store, S60, Shazam, Symbian, Trial, vs

Category: 3rd edition, 5th Edition, Applications, Nokia