Like many early iPod adopters, I’ve been using iTunes for a long time. It might not be the best media player, but it gets the job done adequately. Yet lately I’ve found myself using my Nexus One for most musical needs. Sometimes this involves streaming apps like Pandora. In others it means using the music I’ve loaded manually onto my Android device. I usually accomplish this by mounting my device and dragging the music folder. Clearly that’s not the most efficient way to do things, but it’s not like there’s a well-known media manager that will help me do it. But thanks to James Kendrick, I now know of, use, and love doubleTwist.
The biggest advantage of doubleTwist is that its interface is similar to iTunes. That makes it nice and familiar. It actually works in conjunction with iTunes, so it will discover your library and playlists. So I essentially no longer have to open iTunes except to load my iPod — which, as I mentioned, is become a less and less frequent occurrence.
When you want to load music onto your Android device you just plug it in via USB and mount the drive. Your device will show up in the sidebar, just as an iPod or iPhone shows up in iTunes when connected. You can then choose to sync your library or playlists, or just drag and drop from your library.
Not only does doubleTwist sync and play your music, but it also lets you discover new music, podcasts, and apps. In the top left corner of the app screen you’ll see links for the Android Market, Podcast Search, and Music Store. The music store goes to Amazon’s MP3 store, though I presume it will also access Google’s music service once that gets up and running.
For a nice little walkthrough of the app, here’s Kendrick:
Here’s how this works. To get the doubleTwist desktop app, head to doubletwist.com. You’ll need to be running Windows XP or Vista, or Mac OS X 10.5 or higher. Then you can head to the Market — even right from doubleTwist itself — to download the app for your Android device. It’s all free.
