iTunes vs. doubleTwist
It’s hard to believe anyone would want to try to compete with Apple’s iTunes juggernaut, but that’s what the folks at doubleTwist are doing. Their big pitch is that they offer a choice. But unless that choice is particularly compelling, why would anyone consider it?
Let’s take a closer look.
When you fire up doubleTwist for the first time, you’re asked to create an account. That’s fair enough — you do the same thing with iTunes, although you may have long forgotten this step by now.
» The amazing similarities
The first thing that struck me about the interface is how similar it is to iTunes. Even the icons are almost identical. You’ve got a sidebar on the left with categories for music, photos and movies. The difference is that doubleTwist lists everything it finds on your Mac — not just the stuff in iTunes. This provides added access, but can be a bit messy if your collection is not well organized. A nice feature is that you can import your iTunes playlists and make your own within doubleTwist. You can, of course, double-click a song to play it.
One of the great selling points of iTunes is the store where you can choose from thousands of songs, buy them, download them to your computer and sync them to your iPod. You can also do this with doubleTwist. But in this case the store is Amazon, which has thousands of DRM-free MP3s for sale. Unfortunately, they are only available to U.S. residents, which is a big fail for those of us in the rest of the wide world.
doubleTwist also has something called My Feed. Maybe I’m just dense, but I couldn’t find any documentation on what looks to be an intriguing element.
Another feature not to be overlooked is the ability to share pictures and movies on services such as Facebook, Flickr and YouTube. Or just use email. If nothing else, it’s handy.
» But what does it do with an iPod?
The big test came when I actually plugged my iPod into my iMac. At the time, doubleTwist and iTunes were already running, which might explain the beeps emitted by the iPod. Did it go crazy trying to connect with both programs at the same time? In any case, I quit iTunes and doubleTwist, restarted them one at a time, and my iPod happily showed up — along with all its songs — in the sidebars of both.
About 15 minutes later, the iPod somehow disconnected, complete with a warning that it had not been properly ejected. I’m not sure if this was related to doubleTwist, but it seems to have survived unharmed.
doubleTwist supports a whole array of devices beside the iPod. This is a definite plus over iTunes, but it can also lead to some oddities. For example, I’ve got the portable drive I use for Time Machine backups in the sidebar as well — complete with categories for non-existent music, movies and photos. I’m not sure whether to consider this humorous or amateurish.
» Conclusion
In the end, some nifty extra features and a clean interface found in doubleTwist make it an interesting alternative or complement to iTunes. But unless you really detest iTunes, it’s unlikely to be a replacement.
Posted Wednesday, October 7, 2009 in Reviews
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