doubleTwist: An Amazon Powered Alternative to Apple's iTunes

Last week doubleTwist, the media management software company with DVD Jon as its CTO, released a remake of Apple’s classic 1984 commercial featuring none other than Steve Jobs as a malevolent dictator. The commercial closed with a promise. “On October 6th, doubleTwist brings you Choice“.

Wednesday, doubleTwist has revealed what it means by that: doubleTwist now includes an integrated Music Store, powered by Amazon’s MP3 Store. But unlike iTunes, this app will let you transfer your files to non-Apple devices. The store includes Amazon’s (AMZN) catalog of over 5 million songs, allowing users to purchase songs either as albums or individual tracks (there’s also plenty of free songs available). From a design standpoint, it’s clear that iTunes served as a big inspiration — if you’ve ever used the iTunes Store before, it will take you all of thirty seconds to figure out how to use this one.

In fact, it’s probably safe to say that the new doubleTwist music store is actually easier to use to download music than iTunes is, simply because there’s so much less going on. Upon launching the store you’ll see a handful of top albums and songs, along with a prominent search box at the top of the screen. Click on an album and you’ll see a list of the disc’s tracks, which you can click for a 30 second preview. To buy something simply enter your Amazon ID.

Of course, the store is easier to navigate than iTunes for a reason: there are no movie or TV downloads, no playlists or mixes, and obviously no App Store. But for music, it works like a charm. And there are more features in the pipeline, including recommendations, artist bios, and song ratings.

Once you’ve downloaded your music, you can drag and drop it into whatever device you’ve connected to your computer. Unlike iTunes, doubleTwist supports hundreds of devices, including the Pre, BlackBerry, PSP, Android, and others. The application also lets you manage your photos and movie files, though the company says it doesn’t currently have plans to offer video downloads.

All in all, this is a very impressive effort. Before now Amazon’s MP3 store has been primarily browser based (there are some mobile devices that support it but doubleTwist believes this is the first desktop based application to integrate the store). And there’s no doubt that the doubleTwist download experience is far better than navigating Amazon in your browser. doubleTwist is going to have a hard time convincing the throngs of iPod and iPhone users on iTunes to make the switch, but for anyone else using a device that’s not supported by Apple, it’s quickly turning into a very appealing solution.

doubleTwist’s Music Store is currently available in the Mac version of the app, with the PC version coming soon. The store is currently US-only, but doubleTwist says that UK, German, and French versions are on the way.

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Comments

[FreeRange:]

I'm sorry but what is the statement "it’s quickly turning into a very appealing solution" based on? Sounds like total BS. First, its only available on the mac platform and mac users are using iTunes and are not about to switch. Secondly, despite all the BS out there, you can easily move your music from iTunes to non-iPod devices already. And as you state, it doesn't have apps, playlists, genius, movies, or video. So again, it will be successful why? You make me LOL...

Oct 07 11:24 AM

[BerkeleyBob:]

Dunno, don't think doubleTwist will bring about the collapse of ITunes, but Amazon has available a pretty deep catalog and in a non MP3 format (higher fidelity). Of course, a shocking amount of pop music is shockingly poorly engineered and recorded. I am toying with the idea of a music server, because my collection of CDs and vinyl has considerably more dollar value than my system.

Oct 07 02:05 PM

[mollytjm:]

no app store? no videos, no tv downloads? see...the thing with itunes...it's all there! I'm not knocking Amazon...i order books from them when i want hard copies...but no one has anything nearly as good as Apple...and of course, Apple doesn't exactly wait around..they keep innovating, so it's like trying to catch up with a moving target that keeps out of sight in the future.

Oct 08 10:43 AM