Shazam and a new iPhone

[duncanapple]

My 3Gs iphone broke recently (it was powering off and after a restore it would not reactivate, anyway...) and Apple sent me a replacement 3Gs. I restored this new phone from the backup of my old phone and all was well. Except until I began using Shazam again.

Now, I have had Shazam since my original iPhone 2G (circa 2007), migrating to my 3Gs and again to the replacement 3Gs. However it appears "new" users who download Shazam only get 5 tags a month for free and need to buy the $5 "pro" app to get unlimited tags. Apparently users who downloaded Shazam prior to November 2009 are grandfathered under the free version. Not that the $5 will break me or that its not worth it, but I downloaded it a long time before the change.

Are replacement phones not covered by this change in policy or is there something I can do? I am guessing not but I feel like I should ask before I spend $5 I don't have to. Anyone else have this problem?

Side note, any other free alternatives to Shazam?

 

[ngenerator]

Soundhound is much better and actually worth the money, FWIW

 

[bagelche]

OP, you're saying that when you installed from the backup Shazam no longer recognized you as a grandfathered free user? It might be worth dropping Shazam a note to let them know of this experience. Maybe that could help you out (maybe).

I'm also a grandfathered Shazam user. Today I was playing w/ the free versions of Shazam and Soundhound on a friend's iPad. SH had more features (lyrics, video locating, etc), but in going randomly through my itunes Shazam had a notably higher success rate than SH.

 

[duncanapple]

Yeah I went from a backup as a grandfathered user and it doesn't recognize me. I wonder if there is a way to drop them a note via the app store or thier website. I will check it out, thanks.

 

[iMacDragon]

What they really should have done was made the previously free version the pro one, and introduced new free one. not impressed how they handled it really, though likely as not, they did it deliberately so that eventually everyone would be counted as a new user and have to pay.

 

[SLFGNR8]

Same for me with iPhone 4 Upgrade

So I upgraded to an iPhone 4 from my 1G. Lost my Shazam grandfathering and wrote them about it. They responded that if I send them my receipt and UDID they would grandfather me back in.

This is all fine and good, I was very excited. HOWEVER, I have two iphones, both of which I upgraded, that use the same iTunes account. Shazam refused to update both! They said I could only get one updated.

I find this as really poor customer service and will be looking for other options, including of course going back to version 1.7.