The past few weeks have seen Palm being in the news for all the wrong reasons. We first wrote about them when the USB Implementors Forum disapproved of their practice of hacking iTunes to let Palm Pre users use the Apple software.
After Apple had disabled their hack, we reported on the update that Palm released to their users that enabled the iTunes syncing once again.
Now the popular media management software company, DoubleTwist has announced the launch of a product that could possibly save Palm some embarassment. If you are an avid listener of music, you would know DoubleTwist as one of the worthy alternatives for iTunes. The user interface, so much like the iTunes and in some cases better, allows users to sync their music with not just iPhone, but hundreds of other devices including the Palm Pre.
The company has recently announced the software's integration with Amazon's MP3 store. What this now offers to the users of DoubleTwist is an access to Amazon's catalog of over five million songs. The users have the option to purchase music as albums or as individual tracks and also access several hundreds of free songs from the store.
DoubleTwist claims that theirs is the first desktop based application that is integrated to the Amazon MP3 store which is otherwise only accessible from a web browser. With a slick interface comparing itself with the iTunes and with the ability to connect with hundreds of devices, it makes a lot of sense for Palm to encourage their customers to use DoubleTwist rather than trying to hacking iTunes. Not only will this help Palm recoup from allegations over their strategies being "immature", but with a worthy competitor to iTunes, it is very much possible that Apple does a rethink too on opening up iTunes to devices other than their own.
You can see it in action below:
With its integration with Amazon MP3 Store, do you think DoubleTwist can gain over iTunes in popularity? Would you personally shop for music at DoubleTwist? Please do let us know in the comments.
[via TechCrunch]
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This is a great idea except for the fact that it looks too much like iTunes where I would not doubt Apple may file a lawsuit against them in the near future. I mean come on, that is a mirror image!
True, but less cluttered. Though its more to do with the fact that it offers only music unlike iTunes which offers music, movies, iPhone apps etc etc.
"…it is very much possible that Apple does a rethink too on opening up iTunes to devices other than their own…"
Not going to happen.
Doubletwist will eventually win in the same way that NetFlix has already crushed AppleTV.
This is where many people misunderstand iTunes. It's not a music business. It's a customer fulfillment business. Their customers *are* people who own Apple devices. Their market is people who might buy an Apple device, based on a number of reasons.
Their devices need OSes, they make OSes for those devices. They are not an OS company.
Their devices play music so they bring music to those devices. They are not a music distribution company.
Their devices play movies, so they bring movies to those devices. They are not a movie distribution company.
Their devices run applications, so they bring applications to those devices. They are not a software company.
All of those things are about adding value to the Apple brand devices.
They don't supply applications for non-Apple devices, why would/should they provide content for them?
How many people use iTunes as their music player and purchase iTunes Store content on Windows without having an iPod? iTunes and the store exist primarily for the iPod. Apple would like it to exist secondarily for the Apple TV but people don't feel they need another device under their TV, least of all a hobbled computer that does something as trivial as playback of multi-media. This is something we already have devices for.
The iPod worked because the portable device space was wide open. The fixed device space has been saturated for years. Heck, all the junk around my TV could easily be built into the friggin' TV with a few chips, an HD, and a BD slot. In fact, I'd prefer it.
Apple could use iTunes to play into the fixed device space but that's not their business. They play into the *Apple* device space only.
Smart move would have been having a very cheap multi-media center version of OSX and cheap "Apple on a chip" for static device manufacturers to include in their device.
But Apple won't play in any arena where it doesn't control the end-to-end experience.
We've seen how this goes. I suspect the iPod/iPhone will be the Sony Walkman of the digital age. I loved the walkman at the time, too. I still have one in the bottom of a drawer somewhere.
This is great news and I will definitely be checking it out. The only thing that kept me using iTunes was it's ease and the fact that some of my music (sadly) will still only play on apple software (and I'm to cheap to go pay for the updates..atleast for now). Thankfully, I did stop buying most of my music from Apple years ago and switched to Amazon. Looking forward to it. Why Amazon never did this themselves is beyond me, but hopefully someone will market it.
I will definitely give it a try. I prefer buying music from amazon over itunes myself.
how does it work with the iphone?
Turns out it doesn't work for the iPhone yet and probably never will. Oh well
Haha well what about free music you can get online try music.yahoo.cn or mp3.baidu.com if you cant read chinese just google translate them
hOPE ONE DAY SOMEONE CAN COPY DOUBLE TWIST AND ITUNES STORE AND MAKE A SERVER FOR IT IN CHINA. AS CHINA IS PROTECTED
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