Have you ever heard music on the radio or while you were out shopping and wondered who that was? With an iphone and either of these two programs below, you can find out!

Shazam logo

Shazam is the first contender. When you hear music you want to know the name of, you just launch the application and then click the small TAG NOW button in the upper right corner. The iphone will start to listen to whatever is playing around you as a pie chart fills up to show the deciphering progress. When it finds the result, it will buzz the iphone and display the artist, song title, a link to YouTube for the video (if it’s available) and a link to the iTunes store to purchase the song. Shazam does fairly well in crowded areas, and picked up songs that were playing in a busy toy store as well as a restaurant during dinner rush. The only problems with Shazam is that it displays ads all over the application, does not return good results on classical or jazz music, and it now requires iphone system software 3.0. But it is completely free, and correctly deciphers most mainstream music.

Midomi Logo

Midomi is the second contender. When you launch Midomi there is a giant WHATS THAT SONG button to click on. In a few seconds, Midomi will listen to your surroundings and show you the result of what it hears almost the same way that Shazam does. But with Midomi you get a massive increase in song recognition speed, no advertising clutter, and better recognition on jazz and classical music. Midomi picked up “Drop me off in Harlem” by Richard Wyands, “Symphony #40 in G minor” by Alberto Lizzio, and “Remember Tomorrow” by Mo’ Horizons when Shazam returned a “no idea” for each one of them. But Midomi missed “Symphony No. 25 in G minor” by Mozart and “Love Supreme, Pt. 2: Resolution” by John Coltrane. Then again, Shazam missed both of these, too. Midomi works just as well in crowded locations as Shazam does and correctly deciphers most mainstream music as well. For the vastly superior speed and for a slightly better classical and jazz recognition, Midomi will set you back $4.99.

Both programs let you post your finds to social networking sites like Twitter, view the music video on YouTube (if available) and email a “hey I like this” email with the song artist and album to whoever you want.

It comes down to whether you want to pay a little extra for speed and marginally better classical and jazz recognition, or use a free but slower application that works good enough with vocal performances.

I have both. Just in case.

Shazam: Three and 3/4 out of five stars

Midomi : Four out of five stars

Generic Iphone

I have an iphone. Most of the time it’s an insufferable piece of junk thanks to AT&T. Dropped phone calls. No signal most of the places I go. Distorted electronic speech on outbound calls. Text messages that only show up 15 minutes after they have been sent to me. The phone not ringing all day and suddenly 3 voicemails appear. Bar none, it’s the worst phone service I have ever had.

Now, having said that, the iphone itself is great.

After suffering with AT&Ts craptacular service for 6 months, I went ahead and modified my 1st generation iphone so it can capture video, remote control my work or home PCs, FTP files as needed, sniff my work networks for unauthorized activity, download youtube videos, take voice memos, and change the icons to suit my mood. It does pretty much everything the new 3gs series does, just without the built in GPS.

But the one thing on my iphone I use the most is something I didn’t have to tweak or install. It’s a phone number that has saved me tons of money on information calls and generally getting around new cities I visit. And it’s free from Google.

Just add…

1-800-466-4411

…to your phone address book and mark it as a favorite.

This is the phone number for Google’s directory assistance.

The next time you want to find a phone number or a list of locations of a business, just call Google’s directory assistance instead of your usual directory assistance number. You will hear an automated voice answer and say…

“Call is recorded. Google! Say the business, and the city and state”

If there are multiple businesses in the area matching your criteria, the service will list off the businesses and ask you which one you want to connect to. After your selection, it will connect you for free after saying “hang on and I’ll connect you”.

You can also say “details” to have the service tell you the business’ physical address, any nearby street intersections, and the business’ main phone number. It will repeat this information twice without prompting, and then connect you.

If you say “text message”, the service will send you a text message with the business’ phone number and information.

It’s awesomely straightforward stuff. And best of all, it’s free.

Google 411 works well with just about everyone’s accent and has always surprised me with how fast it returns the information I ask for.

Now if Google would just buy AT&T, things could really get better. GOO&T anyone?