Here's the choice promised by
DVD Jon last week: Amazon MP3.
Doubletwist is now powered by Amazon's 5 million strong music store in support of its vision to connect consumers with all their media across any device. The interface is bare-bones simple to navigate (no apps, TV shows, or Movies to clutter the experience) as you preview and purchase music with your Amazon credentials -- tracks are downloaded into your doubleTwist library where they can be synced with BlackBerry or Android handsets, the Palm Pre, PSP or hundreds of other devices. Amazon access is only available to US users from the Mac-only software at the moment. A PC version is "coming soon" along with more country support. See it in action after the break.
posted Oct 7th 2009 3:27AM
neat! I like it!
Yeah it looks good.
Hopefully sync over wireless LAN will become an option.
Heia Jon!
Palm should back this instead of messing around with itunes.
Yeah, amazon and palm should pump a small amount of dough into doubletwist and get some advertisements, and make things more legit looking. (not saying doubletwist is legit, but people dont trust it unless amazon and palm put their names on it)
This is my new great hope for a music player. Once they get the basic features down like song info (besides just artist and album) and album covers, I'll switch permanently. I've been waiting for an "iTunes for Amazon" for years!
i am happy with my itunes, but I am pleased to see someone doing a nice job of making a true potential competitor.
and I find it amusing that they did the Mac version first. typically it is the other way around
Obviously they're going after Apple and iTunes now. Good luck to them, the more competition to keep the big boys on their toes, the better.
I like how the iPod and iPhone where purposely not named so that some people wouldn't realize that they could use doubletwist instead of itunes. Oh engadget...
@olegprosalov
If you read the website you'll see iPhone and iPod support are PC only. This version of Double Twist featured is Mac only. So it seems like they were correct to leave iPhone and iPod out of the list ATM.
see "http://www.doubletwist.com/dt/Home/Help.dt#supporteddevices"
"iPhone with 2.0 firmware - load your iPhone with movies and let doubleTwist make the necessary conversions; iTunes playlists are also supported (PC only but Mac coming soon, 3.0 firmware not supported yet)
iPod - load your iPod with movies and let doubleTwist make the necessary conversions; iTunes playlists are also supported (PC only but Mac coming soon)"
Ah, 1up-ed...
Haha...
last sentence in the vid: "Leave your IPod at home and take your mobile phone...."
:-)
I'll give it a try
Especially considering what a buggy mess iTunes 9 turned out to be... Ugh.
That's pretty neat, ngl.
great idea. im a Zune user and have no use for this but i always thought someone should make a music store / player / library manager that works with multiple devices. im just kinda surprised to see it works with so many!
Wow!!... DoubleTwist ripped Apples iTunes all the way down to the color scheme with no remorse
Well DoubleTwist (sigh)... IT Seems you've Join the Apple copying Club, you're not the first nor the last
Considering that DoubleTwist was designed to break iTunes' DRM in the first place, the stealing from Apple you're concerned about is really the interface?
Considering Doubletwist was designed to break Apple's DRM (back before they sold DRM-free music), the interface is really the stealing from Apple that you're concerned with?
That's 30 cents per old song that this is literally taking from Apple's pockets. Jeez, at least the Pre solution makes you pay the full price to de-DRM old files...
(Never mind, let's not get into a discussion on that again.)
Listen, it is what it is, I'm not going to hold my tongue over something so obvious. My question is why the same color scheme and interface design? Why couldn't DoubleTwist at least come up with a fresh design concept. Or again a different color scheme, I just don't get it. I think they want people to get confused and think that this is iTunes.
This is getting old
So following the Apple UI design guidelines for applications running on OSX and using the default controls built into XCode is called stealing the iTunes UI?
@ NohOne
PLEASE end this foolishness. I do not know why people love to argue over something that's so black and white.
Are you going to tell me that every application for Mac computers copy the same interface design and color scheme of Apple's own mac application?
Spare me this Xcode bull, DoubleTwist could have varied the design anyway they wanted but this shows their main objective is to disguise themselves as iTunes. I Personally believe they should try to separate themselves, you may disagree with my opinion but don't tell me they look the same because of default controls built in Xcode. Yeah Right
The only people who CARE if someone steals from a company are either employees of that company or fanboys.
Which are you?
"The only people who CARE if someone steals from a company are either employees of that company or fanboys.
Which are you?"
Or perhaps ethical people.
Shoplift a lot do you? Pack of cigs from the convinience store? Or perhaps you're down boosting cars off the local dealer's lot. After all they're companies. I would care, but I wouldn't want to be called out as a Ford fan boy.
@Kyleomusic
From a marketing standpoint there are a lot of people who use iTunes and are comfortable with it. This makes it an easier transition for them to switch to using doubleTwist over iTunes. If they were to have radically changed the interface, most iTunes users would have just overlooked the program as another nameless faceless music player. Not unlike so much of the other bundled software garbage that's out there.
That said, the option for the user to skin the program would be nice.
But does it work outside the USA?
According to the post, "Amazon access is only available to US users"
Does Doubletwist even have it's own music library even yet? Last I checked, you could only add to the library (on PC) by using WMP or iTunes. And for syncing, you could only sync all music or certain playlists... the only problem was you couldn't create playlists in Doubletwist but needed to make them in WMP or iTunes again.
So why does Palm need to sync so badly to itunes when you could use this application it reassembles itunes?
they just like to stir the pot don't they
I might be missing something here, but it seems that the big new thing is a fancy front end to Amazon's shopping experience? I'm curious as to whether this utilises Amazon's affiliate services, fair enough if it does but it would be right to disclose this. Amazon provide a great shopping experience already and provide tools to manage the mp3 downloads.
DoubleTwist does provide a great solution for converting on the fly and perhaps Palm would be better off trying to acquire or licence this app as opposed to playing cat and mouse with Apple. Obviously with Blackberry finally releasing a native media client for mac now must impact on DoubleTwist's potential user base. DoubleTwist is smart but their marketing is better :)
the colour scheme is just a standerd apple window and format designed to blend in with leopard isnt it..... since this is a screenshot on a mac and all programs i use are the same gray and most have a similar sort of feel but yes it is copying the idea of a download store and ive been using this as a means to move music from my itunes to my android phone for months as i have given up using my iphone.
paying for your music through these mediums is fail
i will NOT conform to these evil ways!
Evil how?
"paying for your music through these mediums is fail"
Firstly, stop abusing the English language. Try something like "Paying for your music through these mediums will not work". This obsession that everything is "fail" is really starting to annoy me. "Fail" is a verb, not an adjective.
Secondly, I don't think that iTunes is feeling unsuccessful at the moment and customers find it convenient. It is unsurprising that Amazon would like more of this market and Double Twist will be quite happy with the affiliation kick-backs that they will receive.
@Kelmon
Thank you for being intelligent. :)
Luve Doubletwist & Amazon, but Flipping Amazon / doubletwist why the hell do they only do things in America the rest of the world does exist, amazon UK is more popular then uk itunes because of mp3 format, get your act together amazon & double twist release for PC & UK.
I rather think that the repeated statements that DoubleTwist provides the "easiest way" should have been paraphrased with the disclaimer that this assumes you don't already use iTunes and an iPod/iPhone. I like competition and iTunes certainly could use it but I do not consider manually dragging and dropping media onto my device easier than having it automatically transferred, i.e. synced. It's nice to see the product improving but its not a compelling solution yet.
Any news on a Linux version? I think the linux community would really like something like this, considering itunes doesn't work on linux. Our main options are Rhythmbox, Banshee, and Amarok, none of which have a built-in mainstream store, if I am correct.
You might try SongBird. I haven't tried it in a few years, but it was heading in the general direction of being a powerful media manager. I kinda gave up on it when I gave up on my iPod.
Nice - any alternative to itunes that offer interoperability with other devices rocks
It's nice to see a Mac version only application for a change!
the video demo says to drag and drop, so there really is no sync in this thing.
Doesn't this seem a lot like iTunes?
DAMNIT!
This is when I hate still having a PPC Mac. I'm exclusively an Amazon MP3 user for music purchases and I would love to have a desktop app for browsing. Plus I have always liked the idea of DoubleTwist, although I still have to use VirtualBox for my Zune.
Oh shit, I just posted on Engadget admitting that i neither use iTunes nor an iPod. Better lock my windows.
i think i would like to see some podcasting subscription ability. but, i a terrifically thankful that someone out there is trying to find a better replacement to the all too painful itunes. here's hoping this becomes a most poetic solution - http://web-poet.com/2009/10/07/amazon-mp3-doubletwist/
Are you sure this isn't iTunes 6.0?
looks like iTunes 1 and i'm luvin' it!