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DoubleTwist Syncs iTunes With Your Non-iPod Devices

by Terrence O'Brien on April 7, 2010 at 12:45 PM

DoubleTwist Syncs iTunes With Your Non-iPod Devices

What it is:

DoubleTwist is a music manager and media syncing tool for those who don't want to join, or are looking to leave, the cult of Apple. It has gained particular notability ever since T-Mobile agreed to package the application with some of its Android-powered handsets.

What we like:

Aesthetically, we find DoubleTwist rather pleasing. While others have described it as "rough," we quite enjoy the soft, matte colors and basic control elements. Those pared-down controls mean that it has a very low learning curve. If you've ever used any media management software, you'll feel right at home in DoubleTwist.

In our admittedly limited testing, we encountered no problems adding media to an iPod or to a Windows Mobile-powered cell phone. In particular, we found the podcast searching, subscribing and syncing to be a much more pleasant experience than in iTunes. Syncing videos was relatively painless, thanks to the in-built converter which creates device-specific versions of movies. Future versions will also incorporate a search tool for the Android app catalog, although it won't be able to download and install apps. Instead, you'll have to scan a QR code with your device.

Completely unique amongst media managers, though, is the application's ability to download and import videos from YouTube for offline viewing. And that, of course, makes DoubleTwist the perfect payoff for our P.S. 22 Chorus obsession.

What we don't like:

As a sync tool, DoubleTwist is great. As a music manager? It leaves a lot to be desired. Playing a track opens a separate music player that exists outside the main window and can't be docked. Even basic options, like what data to display, are entirely missing; if you want to view something other than song name, artist, album title and genre, you're out of luck.

There are also issues of speed. DoubleTwist is far more responsive than iTunes, but that isn't saying much. Unfortunately, it takes much longer to install and import our music library than it does with the iPod-only competitor. In fact, the smug demo video on its Web site mocks other apps that require you to repeatedly hit 'Next' during the installation, yet DoubleTwist was perhaps one of the worst offenders in this irritation.

Bottom line:

If you want to sync your iTunes library with your Android phone or other non-Apple device, DoubleTwist is an excellent solution. If you're in the market for a full-fledged music manager to replace iTunes, you're probably better off with the open-source SongBird, which we've previously covered.

doubleTwist

Tags: android, doubletwist, features, ipod, MediaManager, movies, music, reviews, songbird, switcheddownload, sync, top

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