Shazam for iOS has been updated with a refreshed design built around Apple’s new Liquid Glass aesthetic, giving the music recognition app a more fluid, depth-based visual experience. The redesign aligns Shazam’s look and feel with the broader design language introduced across Apple’s ecosystem in iOS 18 and its accompanying app updates.
The new version features translucent interface layers, smoother motion transitions, and subtle lighting effects that respond dynamically as users interact with the app. The update aims to create a more immersive and natural sense of depth while maintaining Shazam’s minimalist visual identity.
A Refined Visual Experience
The Liquid Glass design introduces semi-transparent backgrounds that shift based on motion and color gradients, producing a polished, dynamic interface that mirrors Apple’s most recent design standards. The animations flow more seamlessly across screens, giving the app a lighter and more responsive feel during song recognition and results display.
According to Apple, which owns Shazam, the redesign focuses on clarity and ease of interaction, enhancing accessibility and visual consistency across iOS applications. The company has been gradually extending this design philosophy to other native and integrated apps, creating a unified experience between Apple’s core software and partner platforms.
Enhanced Performance and Accessibility
Beyond aesthetics, Shazam’s latest update also improves responsiveness and accessibility. The app now launches faster and features smoother transitions when switching between detection screens, history lists, and Apple Music integration panels. The new layout also makes it easier for users to identify tracks, view lyrics, and open songs directly in Apple Music with fewer taps.
VoiceOver and dynamic text scaling have been optimized for the new interface, ensuring readability even with the added visual layers and motion effects. The result is a more fluid and inclusive experience that maintains Shazam’s reputation for simplicity while benefiting from Apple’s hardware-accelerated rendering technologies.
Integration With Apple’s Music Ecosystem
The redesign arrives as Apple continues to tighten the integration between Shazam and its broader music ecosystem. Users can connect their Apple Music accounts to instantly add identified songs to playlists or view artist information directly from the Shazam results page.
Shazam’s underlying recognition engine remains unchanged, relying on Apple’s neural network models for faster and more accurate audio fingerprinting. The company says these improvements are part of an ongoing effort to make real-time song identification more intuitive across devices, from iPhone to Apple Watch and even HomePod.
Part of a Broader iOS Design Evolution
The Shazam update emphasizes light refraction, transparency, and layered depth. This aesthetic shift began appearing in iOS 18’s Control Center and Music app and is now expanding to third-party and Apple-owned apps like Shazam.
Apple’s design teams have described the new look as a balance between realism and minimalism, prioritizing subtle motion that enhances usability rather than distraction.
The redesigned Shazam app is available now as a free update from the App Store for all iPhone and iPad users running iOS 18 or later.
