Most iPhone users are probably familiar with the application Shazam which is available as a free download from the app store. Shazam allows you to identify the name of a music track playing on the TV/Radio or in a club/bar by recording a short segment using your iPhones microphone which it then uploads to the Shazam servers where the track is recognized and the artist and track name displayed back on your iPhone.

Tunatic allows you to do the same thing on your Mac. It is a free download which when run displays a small purple search badge indicating that it is ready to identify a song. By default it will use the in-built microphone on the Mac to record the playing music but this can be changed to the line-input through the application preferences if preferred. Clicking the Search icon will start Tunatic identification and it will record and upload any playing music to the Tunatic servers for identification. Normally within about 30 seconds the Tunatic window will change to display the track name and artist. Recognition in my experience was very good with it only failing to recognize a few more obscure tracks.

A fun application that is both impressive and on occasion very useful.