DoubleTwist adds Android Market to its arsenal

By Phil Nickinson
last updated

Not using the doubleTwist yet to sync movies, music and photos to your Android Smartphone? You're really running out of reasons why, especially if you're on a Mac. (Oh, and by the way, it's still free.) The popular sync solution for Android unleashed a new version on the Mac client, bringing Android Market integration as well as a Web portal to the Market. Search for an app, and you're greeted with screen shots, a QR code for download, and recent reviews. Unfortunately, there's no direct communication with your phone, so you'll have to hit up the QR code. But it's one step closer to making doubleTwist the perfect sync solution.

Also new in the Mac version is podcast search (the ability to sync and subscribe is coming up) as well as a new integrated music player. The Windows version of doubleTwist should get Market integration in the next release. [doubleTwist]

Phil Nickinson
Phil Nickinson
18 Comments
  • The update for the Windows version should be here when I get the EVO :) Great addition.
  • Appbrain, a site that lets you search the market and beam a list of apps you want to install to your phone, and iSyncr, an app that syncs to itunes flawlessly and lightening fast, are a much better combo.
  • OTA syncing? If your talking for music and movies then yea it's lacking a bit, but then again, I stream all my music VIA Subsonic from my Windows Home Server. Works great!
  • sorry reply went to wrong person. Link is not to obvious to which comment it goes to.
  • I got excited about iSyncr until I saw that it is Window's only. I have been usingiTuneMyWalkman.app with good success, it is a little slow on the finish up but is working fine and syncs what I want. What I really want is OTA syncing or Spotify to come to the US :)
  • OTA syncing? If your talking for music and movies then yea it's lacking a bit, but then again, I stream all my music VIA Subsonic from my Windows Home Server. Works great!
  • There is a Mac version of iSyncr in the market too. It's a separate app from the Windows version. Works great!
  • I don't like doubletwist for one reason, you have to leave your phone plugged into the PC for it to complete a video transcode. I had 5 movies I wanted to put on my phone and after plugging on my phone VIA USB it found it and I was all set. I then dragged a movie to the phone and started, but had no real indication of time left. Being as it was a two hour movie in WMV HD format(8.5 gigs) I figured it would take a while to I unplugged my phone and boom the transcoding process stopped! That is no good, no good at all. They fix it so that it'll transcode in the background and I might reconsider it. Also, just as a mood point, I don't care for apple cause of the "one way" to put items on your phone, and this kinda reminds me of that. Just not digging it to much.
  • My issue with doubleTwist when I tried it was that it's not really syncing as I define syncing. I even asked if I was doing something wrong on the dT forums, and I was told that dT doesn't do what I wanted. To me, syncing means if I remove a song from a playlist in iTunes, then the next time I sync the device with iTunes (ala doubleTwist), then that song gets removed from my Nexus One. That doesn't happen with doubleTwist (at least not with the version I was testing a couple of months ago), and once dT places a song on your device, the only way to get it off the device is to manually delete it yourself. That's not syncing, or at least it's not full two way syncing like iTunes does with the iPhone. This really made using iTunes to manage my podcast habit on my Nexus One difficult. In the end, that mostly turned out to be a good thing, as it made find BeyondPod and Google Listen and I just manage the podcasts directly on the Nexus One, and that works, but being able to keep the podcasts on my computer and my Nexus One, including playback position, like my iPhone does with iTunes, would be great. The app that ever comes along that does that gets my money, as I like to listen to podcasts over the stereo via iTunes in the morning, then finish any unlistened ones in the car during the day. To do that now requires a bit of manual deleting and finding playback position on the phone.
  • doesn't show the app market on my Eris.
  • Don't like itune clones. Doubletwist is the same complicated mess. I have a PC and I am not used to Apple "intuitive" handling".
    I tried it out and it was always slow and you never new what it was syncing....
  • So how come the Windows version doesn't have this yet? Really disappointing that dT is catering to just 3 percent of the world's desktop market, and the other 92% doesn't have this features. That's messed up. To me in a free society, the majority rules. Mac development should always be second tier to Windows. There simply more Windows machines out there. I just think this is fundamentally flawed to cater to Mac users, when the vast majority of them will not be swayed away from iTunes.
  • Oh brother, we're going to start a Mac vs Windows war in an Android forum>? Sheesh. There are so many things wrong with your assumptions it's amazing: Windows is 97% of the total market, but what percentage of that 97% is business machines that will never get iTunes, doubleTwist, or anything similar? I'm not even sure that your percentages are accurate. Your math certainly isn't, 100% minus 3% is 97%, but you're talking about 92% not needing something, so that's confusing. In a free society, it's not majority rules, it's you're free to do what you want, which means in the free society you're talking about, the developers can develop for whatever platform they want, in whatever order they want. It's nothing about majority rules (as in politics), it's about going where you think the money is (as in business). If you have a non-iPhone music player, there are very few Mac choices to get your content synced nicely from iTunes to the device. Aren't there several options in the Windows world? If so, that makes the Mac audience more captive and more likely to use your application than a windows user. To say that Mac users won't be swayed away from iTunes shows you have a total lack of understanding as to what doubleTwist does for Mac users. It lets them sync their non-iPhone smartphone or music player with iTunes using an iTunes-like interface. If you're like me and like iTunes, and have an Android phone, you're kind of stuck without doubleTwist. Another consideration is that it's quite possible the developers own Macs for their own private use, and that's where they're most comfortable coding. I guess in your free society above, you'd force someone who owns a Mac to code for Windows first, huh? :-)
  • Still unusable on my Mac till I can sync / subscribe to podcasts. Nice update though.
  • Agreed, see my post above as reply to another comment.
  • I'm getting mixed messages from looking at the Doubletwist forums and I'm wary about posting this there, because I've read a lot of user postings where they reply that they should have read their boards before posting.... My concern is that Doubletwist seems to be touted as a solution for people with a Mac and an Android phone.. but several users have posted that the program does not transcode or change your existing iTunes music library (which is in AAC format) into anything that the Android phone (Droid) can play.. is that correct?
  • The Droid plays AAC files, so you will be fine. Most Android phones support multiple music formats. According to Moto, the Droid can handle- AAC, H.263, H.264, MP3, MPEG-4, WAV, WMA, eAAC+, OGG, AMR WB, AMR NB, AAC+, MIDI. doubleTwist works on Windows and Mac. The marketplace just isn't available for Windows yet, but you can go to the website at- http://apps.doubletwist.com/
  • Great addition, can't wait to check this out later today