Apple pulls third-party SDKs from Shazam in latest update

Apple has pulled all but one third-party SDK from Shazam in its latest update.

The move wipes out analytics firms, ad networks, open-source projects, and more — including Google AdMob, Facebook Ads, Amazon Ads, and DoubleClick. Only HockeyApp, a Microsoft platform for beta testing, is still available.

Apple has made some significant changes to Shazam since it finalized its acquisition of the popular music streaming service last September. One of the biggest was to wipe out all ads, and now it is doing the the same with third-party SDKs.

Shazam shuns SDKs in latest update

A bunch of third-party integrations have been dropped in Shazam’s latest update, which rolled out on February 15. Apple’s release notes didn’t mention they change; only “bug fixes and performance improvements” were disclosed.

Most of the SDKs that were wiped were for ad networks and analytics platforms. The cull is almost certainly a part of Apple’s plan to rid Shazam of potential data collection services with the same strict approach to privacy the company has with iOS.

This is great news for Shazam users iOS, who no longer have to worry about these services having access to their listening habits. But the same level of privacy hasn’t yet been extended to Shazam on Android, which still supports a bunch of third-party SDKs.

Those include Bolts, Facebook Analytics, Butter Knife, Crashlytics, Fabric, Firebase, Google Maps, OKHTTP, and OTTO. It’s not yet clear whether Apple plans to remove these in a future release.