Shazam charges BlackBerry users for new app

While iPhone app remains free for now

1 April 2009 10:06 GMT / By Stuart Miles

Shazam has launched a new version of its music app to coincide with the launch of the BlackBerry App World application store that launched on Wednesday.

However fans of the service who own a BlackBerry will be in for a shock. Rather than be offered as a free download as found in the iPhone App Store, the makers behind the software that allow you to identify music just by recording it will be charging BlackBerry users for the privilege.

Users will get the app for 60 days free of charge, however will then be prompted to pay $5 in the US, £5 in the UK or 4.99 euro in Euroland.

After the 60 days the application will be limited in its features, Shazam has told Pocket-lint that the iPhone app will remain free.

Shazam allows users to identify music by simply holding a mobile handset to a song as it’s playing. The software identifies and provides information to the user about the track, artist and album from over 8 million tracks.

According to the company more than one million tracks are tagged each day.

The app is available via the newly launched BlackBerry App World.

Unlike Apple's App Store for the iPhone that requires you to have an iTunes account, customers wanting to purchase apps from BlackBerry App World will require a PayPal account.

The App World is only available to owners of a handset that uses Device Software version 4.2 or higher, have a trackball or SurePress touch screen (i.e., the Storm) and live in the US, Canada or UK.

UPDATE: Shazam has got in touch with Pocket-lint with the following statement in defence of the BlackBerry app pricing:

“We make significant investments in developing applications for each platform and we always try to find the right balance so we may offer Shazam to the masses in an affordable and fair way".

"We believe that Shazam is a compelling and popular service for music lovers, and feedback from our existing customers has indicated that they would be very happy to pay a small fee for the Shazam service. However, we’ve looked at how they use Shazam and have recognized that users have different requirements. Therefore, to reflect what users want we’ve introduced three different options to give our current and future customers the best possible Shazam experience".

"There will always be a free Shazam service - on a limited usage and feature set - supported by advertising with an upgrade path for a full-featured version with a small up-front fee or pay a monthly subscription for a premium service. In time, we expect to have this pricing model consistent across all the platforms that host the Shazam application”.