22 ms·

It would be nice to have the song identification feature on iOS while on standby like the Pixel 2 does.

whoisjuan 9y ago
I still can't understand how that feature works. They stated that everything is done locally on the device, so privacy is not an issue. But how can they host a huge catalog of songs fingerprints without blowing the storage? Are they only saving the top charts?
- laken 9y ago
  My understanding is that song fingerprints are tiny, so it's not too prohibitive to store an entire catalog of them on the device.
  - icebraining 9y ago
    That's weird, because the AcoustID database is over 160GB: https://acoustid.org/database https://acoustid.org/database Then again, it does have 48M fingerprints, so that's only ~3.3KB/fingerprint. Maybe Google has a decent subset in a reasonably-sized package.
    - pwinnski 9y ago
      Reports on the Pixel library have it at either the 10k or 20k most popular tracks only. That makes for a reasonably small library.
    - abritinthebay 9y ago
      at 3.3kb it's only about 64mb to store 20,000 songs. If they periodically update that (in the background, on wifi, etc) you'd likely never know. It's basically noise when OS updates are multi-gb.
- warrenmiller 9y ago
  Yeah it misses out on a lot of indie stuff
- indy 9y ago
  They only store a catalog of the most popular songs. (Where 'most popular' is determined by your geographical location). This catalog is periodically updated.
  - neves 9y ago
    Isn't the use case to find obscure music? Weird to have just popular ones. To "discover" a top 10 hit I can just ask someone nearby.
    - jlardinois 9y ago
      Not necessarily. Everything is "obscure" to you the first time you hear it.
    - mjlee 9y ago
      I think the Pareto principal kicks in hard here. If it stores the top 20,000 songs as the other comments suggest then I expect that would include the vast majority of music you’d come across.
    - neinzero 9y ago
      Top 10, yes, but not top 10,000.
- kornish 9y ago
  According to a friend who works at Google, they only store a catalog of ~20k popular songs that updates periodically. Fingerprints are small, so an archive of that size isn't too big.
  - cma 9y ago
    Sucks for the little guys: http://www.thwink.org/sustain/glossary/CumulativeAdvantagePrinciple.htm http://www.thwink.org/sustain/glossary/CumulativeAdvantagePr...
- bluedino 9y ago
  The Shazam thread from the other day said it was only 60MB worth for like 10 or 20k songs
- Eric_WVGG 9y ago
  For what it's worth, here's a bit (and discussion) on how Shazam actually works. I'm ashamed to admit I understand hardly any of it. http://coding-geek.com/how-shazam-works/ http://coding-geek.com/how-shazam-works/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9870408 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9870408
- mdc2161 9y ago
  It's definitely not just the top charts. Notably it has picked up when someone near me was playing Chopin on a piano as well as the occasional KPop tune my girlfriend is listening to. My guess is it supplements the data with songs from your Google Music and youtube history.

I still can't understand how that feature works. They stated that everything is done locally on the device, so privacy is not an issue. But how can they host a huge catalog of songs fingerprints without blowing the storage? Are they only saving the top charts?

laken 9y ago
My understanding is that song fingerprints are tiny, so it's not too prohibitive to store an entire catalog of them on the device.
- icebraining 9y ago
  That's weird, because the AcoustID database is over 160GB: https://acoustid.org/database https://acoustid.org/database Then again, it does have 48M fingerprints, so that's only ~3.3KB/fingerprint. Maybe Google has a decent subset in a reasonably-sized package.
  - pwinnski 9y ago
    Reports on the Pixel library have it at either the 10k or 20k most popular tracks only. That makes for a reasonably small library.
  - abritinthebay 9y ago
    at 3.3kb it's only about 64mb to store 20,000 songs. If they periodically update that (in the background, on wifi, etc) you'd likely never know. It's basically noise when OS updates are multi-gb.
warrenmiller 9y ago
Yeah it misses out on a lot of indie stuff
indy 9y ago
They only store a catalog of the most popular songs. (Where 'most popular' is determined by your geographical location). This catalog is periodically updated.
- neves 9y ago
  Isn't the use case to find obscure music? Weird to have just popular ones. To "discover" a top 10 hit I can just ask someone nearby.
  - jlardinois 9y ago
    Not necessarily. Everything is "obscure" to you the first time you hear it.
  - mjlee 9y ago
    I think the Pareto principal kicks in hard here. If it stores the top 20,000 songs as the other comments suggest then I expect that would include the vast majority of music you’d come across.
  - neinzero 9y ago
    Top 10, yes, but not top 10,000.
kornish 9y ago
According to a friend who works at Google, they only store a catalog of ~20k popular songs that updates periodically. Fingerprints are small, so an archive of that size isn't too big.
- cma 9y ago
  Sucks for the little guys: http://www.thwink.org/sustain/glossary/CumulativeAdvantagePrinciple.htm http://www.thwink.org/sustain/glossary/CumulativeAdvantagePr...
bluedino 9y ago
The Shazam thread from the other day said it was only 60MB worth for like 10 or 20k songs
Eric_WVGG 9y ago
For what it's worth, here's a bit (and discussion) on how Shazam actually works. I'm ashamed to admit I understand hardly any of it. http://coding-geek.com/how-shazam-works/ http://coding-geek.com/how-shazam-works/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9870408 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9870408
mdc2161 9y ago
It's definitely not just the top charts. Notably it has picked up when someone near me was playing Chopin on a piano as well as the occasional KPop tune my girlfriend is listening to. My guess is it supplements the data with songs from your Google Music and youtube history.