Droid iTunes Substitute: Doubletwist

Howdy!

I love my iPod Touch, and am pretty ok with iTunes. But, I use a Droid phone (which I like), that I cannot put iTunes on. I searched around a bit and decided to try out Doubletwist, a free program that would let me put my iTunes music library on my Motorola Droid. Sort of.

I must say that I was not overly enthusiastic about having to download a new program and figure out how to transfer the files over. Steve Jobs should learn how to get along with everybody else, and I would happily buy songs through iTunes if they would let me put it on my Droid.

I had no trouble installing Doubletwist onto my Droid, as I just went to the marketplace and downloaded it. Installing it on my Windows-based computer was not much more difficult. I just went to http://www.doubletwist.com/dt/Download/DownloadWindows.dt and followed the usual bunch of prompts. The program automatically scanned my drive for media, and transferred everything over – both music and videos.

Any fears I had about learning a new computer interface were unfounded. The Doubletwist main page is a pretty effective rip-off of the iTunes layout, so it did not take me long to figure out how to use it. As on iTunes, there is the usual bunch of choices, such as the store, the libraries (music, video, photo) and playlists.

After that, it was just a matter of connecting my Droid to the PC with a micro USB cable, and it was all ”check the boxes” stuff after that. Doubletwist recognized my phone and wanted to know what I wanted to put on it. I had to choose wisely, as my memory card is limited, so I only picked a few of my playlists and videos. After that, I hit the sync icon and it was all good.

One cool feature is that it is easy to set any song in your library as a ringtone. Try it out.

The only downside is that iTunes would not let me export all of the music I bought from them unless I paid an upcharge for each song. WTF, Steve Jobs? How many times do I have to pay for the same music? Anyway, this is an iTunes problem, not a Doubletwist problem.

So, I am impressed with Doubletwist. If you have a Droid phone, go to the trouble of adding the app and downloading the software. It is a nice way to move your media library to your phone. BTW, I believe this program will also work on the Blackberry and Zune.

Mahalo!