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iOS 26.4 upgrades one of my most-used Control Center features in a big way

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Why This Matters

The iOS 26.4 update introduces offline Shazam song recognition in Control Center, enhancing user convenience by allowing song identification without an internet connection. This improvement is significant for users in areas with poor connectivity, ensuring they can identify music anytime, anywhere. It reflects Apple's ongoing focus on refining user experience and expanding the functionality of core features.

Key Takeaways

iOS 26.4 is launching soon, headlined by many new features in Apple Music. There’s also a music-related improvement to Control Center in iOS 26.4: Shazam song recognition will now work even when you’re offline.

Control Center’s Shazam song recognition now works offline in iOS 26.4

Apple shipped the RC (release candidate) version of iOS 26.4 today, meaning the new iPhone update will launch to all users very soon.

One new feature Apple mentions in the release notes is an improvement to Shazam song recognition.

Per the official iOS 26.4 release notes:

Offline Music Recognition in Control Center identifies songs without an internet connection and delivers results automatically when you’re back online

Control Center is a quick, convenient way to get details on whatever song is playing in your environment. And I use the Shazam ‘Recognize Music’ feature all the time.

But I’ve definitely been in situations when I’m trying to identify a song, but my connection is poor and I miss the opportunity.

Now with iOS 26.4, it seems that won’t be a problem anymore.

Thanks to the new update, the iPhone will be able to save the audio data for the track even when offline. Presumably when the iPhone’s connection improves, Shazam will push a notification with the results of its song identification.

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