Shazam for iOS Sheds 3rd Party SDKs

Shazam, the song identification app Apple bought for $400M, recently released an update to its iOS app that got rid of all 3rd party SDKs the app was using except for one.

The SDKs that were removed include ad networks, analytics trackers, and even open-source utilities. Why, you ask? Because all of those SDKs leak usage data to 3rd parties one way or another, something Apple really really dislikes.

Here are all the SDKs that were uninstalled in the latest update:

Right now, the app only has one 3rd party SDK installed and that’s HockeyApp. Microsoft’s version of TestFlight. It’s unclear why it’s still there, but we don’t expect it to stick around for too long.

Looking across Apple’s entire app portfolio it’s very uncommon to see 3rd party SDKs at all. Exceptions exist. One such example is Apple’s Support app which has the Adobe Analytics SDK installed.

Things Are Different on Android

Since Shazam is also available for Android we expected to see the same behavior. A mass uninstall of 3rd party SDKs. At first glance it seems to be the case, but not exactly.

Here are all the SDKs that were uninstalled in the last update:

Here are all the SDKs that are still installed in Shazam for Android:

On Android, Apple seems to be ok with leaking usage data to both Facebook through the Facebook Login SDK and Google through Fabric and Google Maps, indicating Apple hasn’t built out its internal set of tools for Android.

It’s also worth noting that HockeyApp was removed from Shazam from Android more than a year ago.

Want to see which SDKs apps have installed? Check out Explorer, the most comprehensive SDK Intelligence platform for iOS and Android apps.