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Shortly after the release of iOS 14, Apple introduced an upcoming update to iOS 14.2, which is now available to developers and public beta testers ahead of a public release that could arrive sometime in October.
The iOS 14.2 update is primarily focused on the Control Center, introducing a new music recognition toggle that deepens Shazam integration on the iPhone and iPad. We thought about trying out Shazam’s new switch in the Control Center in our latest YouTube video, giving those who haven’t installed the beta a look at what it does.
For those unfamiliar with Shazam, it is designed to listen to the music that is playing, providing a song title and artist for identification purposes. Apple iPhones and iPads have long had Shazam integration, available through the Shazam app and asking Siri to identify a song that is playing.
After years of integrating Siri, Apple acquired Shazam in 2017, and the acquisition ended in 2018, but so far, Apple has not made any move to make song recognition a system-level feature.
iOS 14.2 adds a new “Music Recognition” toggle to Control Center, which you can tap every time music is playing to get song recognition. Note that music recognition is different from sound recognition, an accessibility feature introduced in iOS 14 to help the hearing impaired hear sounds such as alarms.
The music recognition toggle doesn’t appear in Control Center by default (beta version at least), but it can be enabled by opening the Settings app, selecting Control Center, and then scrolling down and tapping the “+” button then. to music recognition.
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By tapping the Music Recognition button in the Control Center, an iPhone or iPad will hear a song that is playing and when a song is recognized, you will be notified by a pop-up banner. Tapping on the banner opens Shazam, but a long press will give you the option to open the song directly in Apple Music, which is useful for Apple Music subscribers.
Music recognition works with songs that are played in the ambient environment, as well as with songs that are played on your iPhone. So if you’re watching a video and want to know what song it contains, you can tap the Music Recognition switch to find out. It even works when AirPods are connected, so the sound doesn’t need to be loud. This was possible with a Siri command before, but the functionality is easier to use with the simple switch in the Control Center.
Along with music recognition, there are a few other additional tweaks in the iOS 14.2 update. The Now Sounding interface in the Control Center has been redesigned and now when music is not playing it will display suggestions based on songs and albums you have recently listened to. The layout has also been simplified, and if you want AirPlay on other devices, there is now a small toggle toggle that shows all nearby AirPlay 2-compatible devices in a list, rather than always showing them in the widget.
iOS 14.2 also adds one more Accessibility feature, enhancing the Magnifier app on the iPhone. There is now an option to turn on People Detection in Magnifier, allowing the app to detect people so low vision people know when someone is within six feet. The person recognition option can also identify specific people who have been tagged in the Photos app using the face detection feature of the facialiPhone.
The iOS 14.2 update is available to developers and public beta testers right now, so anyone can give it a try if they want. It is a beta version so expect some bugs. IOS 14.2 is likely to be in beta testing for some time while we wait for new iPhones, with a release perhaps later in October.
