For lovers of music, mobile phones and smart devices are getting better and better. With new phones and devices coming out in a seemingly constant stream from providers like O2, musical capabilities are expanding rapidly. To begin with, the more popular mobile phones of today have far better speakers on them in a lot of cases, which means that playing music from your phone is now a viable option even if you’re a bit picky about your sound. But the main thing that has music lovers jumping for joy with regard to smart phones is the increase in the number of apps specifically designed for music enjoyment. Here are a few popular examples.

• iTunes – If you have an iPhone, you automatically have the iTunes app. This is nothing new, in terms of the services it offers, but it does allow you to manage your music library and store your music right on your phone, which can be extremely convenient. This is useful both for everyday use, and for use in transit, as smart phones can be easily connected to car stereos, enabling you to play whatever music you have on your phone over your car system.

• Shazam – Shazam doesn’t necessarily help you to directly play or download music, but it is still extremely popular and useful for music lovers. This app essentially recognizes music, meaning that if you are ever out and about and hear a song that you enjoy, but aren’t familiar with, you can “Shazam it” and your phone will recognize the artist and title of the song by “listening” to it. Shazam doesn’t allow you to then download that song, but it is still a useful tool for gathering new music.

• Pandora – First popular online, the Pandora app has all of the capabilities of the online version. Essentially, Pandora helps you to listen to music you enjoy while simultaneously finding new music. It does this by recognizing your taste based on the artist or song that you start a “station” with. Basically, Pandora is a radio station that is suited directly to your preferences, and is very useful for helping you find new artists and songs to enjoy.

• Spotify – Often confused with Pandora, Spotify is actually not a tool to help you to find new music. There is no recognition of taste involved. However, Spotify does allow you to listen to virtually any song you could possibly imagine, and to create play lists that will stay available. For a monthly fee, the Spotify app allows you to gather all of the music that you want. This music is not stored in your iTunes library, but it remains available to you if you put it in play lists, meaning that Spotify can function either as a radio on which you choose what you listen to, or as an additional music library for all of your songs. You can also link Spotify to Facebook or Twitter so as to share music with friends.