Yeah, There's An App For That

So how many times have you heard a song on the radio, or a TV commercial (this happened last night) or even a video game (about 20 minutes ago for me) and you think to yourself, “That sounds really good, I think I'd like to own that.”

Well there's an iPhone application called Shazam that has been out for a while but I’ve had occasion to use it this past week across all the situations I just gave as examples:

http://www.shazam.com/music/web/pages/iphone.html

Just hold up the iPhone to the music source (speakers), hit the “Tag” button on the Shazam app, let it sample the music for about 10 seconds and using the power of analysis (some far off servers across the Internet) it tells you what the answer is. In my case (just now it was):

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001W1UY0W/ref=dm_dp_trk8?ie=UTF8&qid=1256422919&sr=301-1

Pjanoo (name of song). You can hit the Preview button on the latter Amazon page and listen in.

This song was featured in the latest trailer the latest Grand Theft Auto 4 expansion. I also heard it some weeks ago during my gym class - the instructor was playing it off her iPod during the cycling class. I heard it yet again in the GTA4 trailer and it crossed my mind “You know, I bet Shazam can help me figure out what that song is.” Indeed it did.

As for the song I heard last night during the TV commercial:

http://www.amazon.com/Walking-On-A-Dream/dp/B0026BI3OQ/ref=dm_ap_trk1

Walking On A Dream by Empire of the Sun.

Bill Gates used to say “Information at your fingertips” eluding to the notion of über powerful desktops (powered by Microsoft of course) housing gobs of information. While some would argue that indeed Microsoft Windows powers many a computer that fetches information off the Net (the host OS for a browser) considering that the HTTP protocol and implications of the greater World Wide Web were not envisioned or spearheaded by MS in any way, shape or form (even after the fact, e.g., cloud computing, no, MS isn't a vanguard there either) and that the iPhone from Apple has seen that dream, imho, take form for people living on the edge of the cloud, i.e., information at your fingertips (in a very, very compelling way), Gates’ vision while materializing isn't being lead by Microsoft.

As for “host OS for a browser” – in light of Apple’s latest quarterly results (best quarter ever; most Macs sold in a quarter), even that could significantly change over the long haul. Case in point, there’s 8 people on my team at work - 5 use Macbooks, 3 of us use Windows (2 XP users, 1 Vista user).

Yeah, there’s an app for that.