SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--SoundHound Inc.®, the leading innovator in sound recognition and voice search technologies, today launched SoundHound 8, a complete redesign of its popular app to deliver the most advanced music search, discovery, and connected streaming experience. The update emphasizes unique features such as voice controls powered by SoundHound Inc.’s Houndify™ platform for a hands-free experience and quick access to songs, videos, playlists, lyrics, and more. The update is available to download now on iOS and Android.
SoundHound 8 takes the best aspects of the original music search and discovery app and makes the experience more powerful and easier to use. Discovering new music — either by tapping the iconic orange SoundHound button while music is playing, or by humming or singing a song “stuck in your head” — has been the hallmark feature of SoundHound. Now, the new “Play” section of the app showcases the music and video player features, enabling users to explore rich content, such as song charts and the latest music videos.
By connecting to popular music streaming services, including Apple Music and Spotify, users can automatically populate SoundHound Discovery playlists and unlock real-time LiveLyrics® while listening to full track streaming within SoundHound. Feature highlights include:
- Search & Play: An updated home screen provides a streamlined, intuitive entry point into the world’s most advanced music discovery experience.
- Voice at the Forefront with “OK Hound…”: SoundHound’s hands-free voice interaction (powered by Houndify) is prominently featured and promoted via home screen headliners and suggested tips. SoundHound is the first and only music recognition app to offer voice control.
- SoundHound Discoveries Become Instant Playlists: Connect to Apple Music or Spotify and build your personal history with every song discovered. Play the tracks inside SoundHound and see where you were when you found it via your Music Map.
SoundHound is the first music recognition app to design a truly voice-first experience, powered by SoundHound Inc.’s Houndify voice and AI platform. The SoundHound app redesign brings SoundHound Inc.’s proprietary voice AI technology to the forefront of the user experience. Users can search and play music using their voices by saying the wake phrase, “OK Hound...” or by tapping the microphone icon on the Play page. Music fans do not need to type or search across multiple applications; instead, SoundHound enables fast search and play, with the option to go hands-free. Users can say things like:
- “OK Hound… what’s that song?”
- “OK Hound… add this song to my playlist.”
- “OK Hound… play ‘Hello’ by Adele.”
- “OK Hound… play someone like Adele.”
- “OK Hound… play my Discoveries.”
- “OK Hound… play today’s top songs.’’
- “OK Hound… show the lyrics to ‘Castle on the Hill.’”
- “OK Hound… where was Katy Perry born?”
SoundHound is one of the most downloaded music apps of all time, with more than 300 million global users. It includes integrations with Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube, Pandora and Deezer, driving streaming music usage, and has become a mobile platform for artists to launch content and connect directly with fans at the key first moment of discovery – song identification – or when browsing for new music.
To download SoundHound for iOS or Android, visit http://www.soundhound.com. For more information or to get started with Houndify, visit http://www.houndify.com. The “OK Hound” voice interface feature is available globally for users with English language setting.
About SoundHound Inc.:
SoundHound Inc. turns sound into understanding and actionable meaning. We believe in enabling humans to interact with the things around them in the same way we interact with each other: by speaking naturally to mobile phones, cars, TVs, music speakers, and every other part of the emerging ‘connected’ world. Our consumer product, Hound, leverages our Speech-to-Meaning™ and Deep Meaning Understanding™ technologies to create a groundbreaking smartphone experience, and is the first product to build on the Houndify platform. Our SoundHound product applies our technology to music, enabling people to discover, explore, and share the music around them, and even find the name of that song stuck in their heads by singing or humming. Through the Houndify platform, we aim to bring voice-enabled AI to everyone and enable others to build on top of it. We call this Collective AI Our Mission: Houndify everything.