By 
The media management crisis: outside of Apple’s iTunes, which is admittedly the industry leader, there aren’t a whole lot of universal solutions that work with the various hardware devices and systems of choice. DoubleTwist is a company whose goal is to solve that problem from a 3rd party perspective. Breaking into the minds of consumers, when you’re outside looking in, can be difficult… unless you’ve got help.
T-Mobile and DoubleTwist are teaming up to help eachother out, and inherently help US out, with an out-of-the-box media syncing solution that will come pre-installed on many T-Mobile Android Phones. If you’re curious exactly what DoubleTwist is… take a peek:
Very similar in functionality to iTunes with some interesting additional inclusions. The folks at TechCrunch are saying it will, essentially, be “iTunes for Android”. There isn’t really anything negative I can say about that… I’m just eager to learn the official details.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Google made an offer to purchase one of these media syncing software companies. They want to position themselves at the center of your web experience, clearly are moving towards the cloud, and information about your media and habits provides invaluable analytics data. With Android and Chrome OS both up-and-coming juggernauts, it would be a wise move at keeping control of people’s web/computer use. This entire paragraph is just my own speculation but I should tell any Google management reading this that I do take anonymous consulting fee donations.
Been using this for a while for my PSP and Mytouch. It works well especially if you’ve been using iTunes already. It pretty much jumps in where you were last in iTunes as far as playlist, etc. Or you can start fresh within the app.
Will it work with Linux?!
Android could really use a “music-data management / music player / Data Sync” killer application combination like iTunes/iPod music player.
Ideal:
– Killer music player w/ Genius-like support
– Lock screen w/ music player control
– Music-data management and synchronization to Android
Although these features may be available in some forms for Android, they are not part of the Android “core” functionality available to all Android phones. The iPhone excels at being a music player as much as a phone. The music player and data synchronization cannot compete with the iPhone if it remains a second-class citizen.
As soon as I read “iTunes for Android” it occured to me that Google needs to jump in to add app management to DoubleTwist. I agree a DoubleTwist acquisition or serious partnership is in order!
Exactly Brian,
DoubleTwist looks good but is missing any app management.
I tried Doubletwist recently and was severely disappointed. It’s slow, unresponsive, and is missing some important features like playlist folders.
Bear in mind that I’m dealing with a 17,000 track library, but iTunes works with it just fine.
That said, I’d really like to see it improved because I think it’s a better “iTunes bridge” than iTunes Agent.
I recently tried out Doubletwist and was somewhat disappointed. With a legitimate Library of over 17,000 tracks, it took over 6 hours for Doubletwist to populate its Library.
iTunes deals with large libraries much quicker, and it’s simply a smoother experience.
I do hope that these partnerships will help it evolve faster, as I do think it’s the best “iTunes bridge” software available for Android users.
Has anyone checked out Songbird on either the Hero or Droid? I like that player on my PC, however I don’t have an Android phone on which to use it.
http://getsongbird.com/gadgets/
The UI has some issues, but the biggest problem is Apple. I want one software for all my devices, which include Apple as well as the Nexus One. But due to limitations, it won’t sync my wife’s iPod Touch.
Who needs iTunes? The OS is capable of moving song files to any Android phone. Are US consumers really so f*$king stupid they need a program to put a playlist on a phone??
iTunes is nothing but bloat, and iPhone users are among the stupidest people live, hence I see their need, but Android is for normal people who can add 2 + 2. Just mount your SD card, then drag & drop.
One thing that DoubleTwist can do for you is sync vidoe files to your phone and convert them from standard .avi to .264 so they will play on the handset. Very nice feature. I watched all of Dexter on my MT3G last year.
I would like DoubleTwist to work on my Droid without freezing up half way through the sync. But it won’t. I wound up getting Missing Sync for Android and it works great…but at $40, a pretty expensive solution.
iTunes is crappy bloatware who wants it anyways.
Just mount your SD card and drag your music where you want it.
There are some of us who use smart playlists, a brilliant feature for those who get a lot of new music, and using iTunes to sync to an iPod with playlists is a very powerful tool.
Photoshop is bloatware compared to something like Paint.NET if you’re only going to be doing cropping and photo resizing. Right now iTunes is a much better product than Doubletwist, but it can get a whole lot better.
Can’t wait to try this out
@Will S
+1
I’ve been saying this for a while now. The ability to plug your device in and sync your latest updated playlists is something *needed* for the Android OS. App management I could care less about. I had that ability with iTunes/iPod Touch but rarely (if ever) used it.
@*d*
Actually, with DT’s ability to convert video that wouldn’t play (if I was too stupid that I just copied it over without conversion) otherwise, is an awesome feature to have and is needed. Why the anger bro? I don’t buy technology to make more work in my life! Relax.
I think the greatest short-coming of the current crop of Android phones as they relate to music, is not the software. It’s the hardware.
The greatest feature of the iPhone with relation to music, is the physical connector, and the ability of 3rd party systems to both control the player via the connector, and stream the audio out via the connector, while also charging via the same connector. The quantity of 3rd party peripherals that can use the iPhone connector is amazing, and is a huge part of the music ecosystem that makes the iPhone a far superior music device than Android.
Google should attempt to deliver a similar capability, consistently, via the microUSB connection. If there could be a consistent API for 3rd party applications and hardware devices to access the default music player, and also stream audio out, that would be HUGE.
GO D
I like what you are saying. Apparently no one has the time to create a folder/drag and drop. I love the fact that android is so open(I actually don’t own one YET) My wife wanted to buy a IPhone I refused to by her one. I feel IPhone takes the control out of the consumers hands. I have never liked iTunes or Icrap anything for that reason. Its like buying a my passport and NOT formating it. What! You really think the bulky programs are going to be able to do it faster than you! Come On! Then you run into rules! OMFG! NO! The F is not a type O.
Rules man ICrap has so many rules. O and don’t mess up or all 17,000 in your little itune folder are GONE! Yep! Drag/Drop This is the same as copy so you mess up still have an original. Hummmm! Smarts, I don’t now? Come people We like android because it isnt iphone stop bitching and start a revolution buy ANDROID.