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I would argue that it's not worth my 30 seconds to unlock my phone and open Shazam (which btw turns on the display and the radio, which then triggers other apps to poll for notifications, so there goes your 1%)

I would also bet the database is probably not much bigger then the shazam app itself.

I frankly just find it a well balanced solution both in terms of UX and in terms of engineering.

> it's not worth my 30 seconds to unlock my phone

It takes me ~4 "seconds" (saying "one-one thousand" aloud) to do it when typing in a password (sorry, don't have a stopwatch handy). Just did it 10 times just to test. It'd be even faster with pin/fingerprint/face unlocking, or with no locking at all.

I also used Shazam and Google's "what song is this" feature for somewhere less than 5 minutes on the initial few seconds of 10 songs and my battery indicator didn't move a single percentage during my testing. Shazam scored 10/10, Google missed one (a song from an esoteric Chicago band called Terminal Bliss - all of the songs I chose were intentionally fairly obtuse to try to find missing info in the databases).

But I can say with fair assurances Google's not shipping their entire database on phones, just whatever's most popular up to some (probably size driven) limit; any given CD releases with about ten songs, any given year sees tens of thousands of CD releases (about 75,000 albums in 2010 alone). Worse, the entire feature's use case is better suited towards less popular music since you're less likely to know the song's name if it's new or esoteric - so you can almost immediately guess that those 70k songs in that database is just ~30 years of various genre chart topping hits.

All you've done is cement my convictions that this is absolutely a solution in search of a problem.

> It takes me ~4 "seconds" (saying "one-one thousand" aloud) to do it when typing in a password (sorry, don't have a stopwatch handy). Just did it 10 times just to test. It'd be even faster with pin/fingerprint/face unlocking, or with no locking at all.

Ah, but did you test this in your quiet office or home, sitting at your desk with both hands free?

Let's try a real-world environment. Something like, say, driving in your car, in moderate traffic, with both hands on the wheel while listening to your radio. That ~4 seconds becomes a barrier-to-entry just large enough to abandon the idea of finding out what the name is to that song you are listening to.

Because, lets be honest, wondering what the song is isn't that important. But it is nice. Which is why this feature has some proponents.

> I would also bet the database is probably not much bigger then the shazam app itself.

I don't know what you're trying to say here. Shazam has millions of songs in their database, according to the original paper the offline mobile recognition system by google just has something over 70k finger prints. That's the big benefit of using an online system, you don't have to have all the fingerprints stored locally and also don't have to stick to the low power constraint.

> ...this doesn't seem like it is at all worth giving up 1% of battery life.

I view it differently. Percent of battery life isn't an interesting metric in a vacuum. It's whether you easily/regularly get the phone back to a charger without it feeling burdensome. That is to say, does the phone last all your waking hours without threatening to turn off.

I own one of these fancy new Pixel 2's. I find that the phone is usually above 30% when I'm returning to bed at night. The music detection has proved useful at times, and a single percent of battery isn't going to make me sweat.

However, in a year or two, when the battery starts losing performance, you may be right. My old phone, a 5X, often dipped close to 5% by the time I got to bed. I had to go out of my way to find a charger, which was frustrating. Sacrificing yet another bit of battery for this feature would only make that worse.

I have found it to be a useful feature that is worth the 1% daily battery life. I prefer it to Shazam/Soundhound because it's passive. I don't have to unlock my phone, open an app, press a button, and wait for the app to recognize the music. That whole process is disruptive to conversation if I'm with someone. How often the question of "what song is this" comes up depends on who you are, and it has occurred to me often enough such that I've recognized that I much prefer using Now Playing.

I agree that the database is a major limitation, although for me it acts as a first pass to see if the song I'm listening to is popular enough to be recognized.

> The question of "what song is this" comes up maybe once a month at best, and apps like Shazam already exist and have much deeper databases to search through.

very bold anecdata claim.

I would love to see Shazam numbers as to the actual median frequency per month.

I love this feature on my Pixel 2. I glance at my phone at least 2-3 a day just for this feature. To me it adds another layer of separation from being tied to me phone. Previously pulling up Shazam would bait me into engaging with notifications I didn't need to engage with.

I do agree with the privacy concerns though.

Yeah, I agree. If the phone doesn't recognize the song you want, you'll use Shazam anyway. So in the end, you can't trust the system 100% so the benefits of having this feature are pretty limited.

Have a Pixel 2 XL and like the feature and keep it on my lock screen. But I am horrible at remembering song names. I most like it with driving and the radio is not the type that displays the song name.