SoundHound Premium Song Search & Music Player for iOS

Music-finding app SoundHound has changed names and pricing structures throughout the course of its modest lifetime, but its philosophy and core functionality remain unchanged. Unlike competitors that require you to hold the app close to the source of recorded music before it can ID your song title, lyrics, and artist information, SoundHound Infinity (the premium version) works even when you sing, hum, speak, or type a request into the stylish interface. Though the app is now faster than before--returning results in as few as 4 seconds--ambient noise may still interfere with accurate results, and typing usually prevailed in the rare case that singing into the speaker or holding the iPhone up to a music source failed.

There are music videos to watch, when available from YouTube, and song lyrics, either delivered right to you, or in the form of an in-app Google search. Trend charts show you how popular a song is vis a vis the publisher's online and mobile network, and you can see which songs other users have identified. Cleverly, SoundHound can also hook into your iPhone's iPod library and produce the same info and lyrics for songs you already own.

Take heed that SoundHound Infinity is no song downloader, though it can help you buy music through iTunes. The iPad version looks even better, keeping the song-finding features on the left while surfacing videos, titles, and other related information in the main panel on the right. SoundHound (the company) also offers a free version of the app that limits the number of times you can ID a song to five per month.