doubleTwist brings Android Market browsing to the desktop

By on Mar 31, 2010 at 11:05 AM
mobile March 31, 2010

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Cross-platform phone synchronization tool doubleTwist is adding some welcomed functionality to its flagship program by including support for Android’s Market. The new feature will allow users of doubleTwist to browse the latest Android Market offerings from within dT right on their desktop. It does, however, come with a “twist.” See what we did just there? The ability to download an Android app to your desktop and sync to your phone via USB — a la iTunes — is not an option. Instead, doubleTwist will display app QR codes which, when scanned by Android, will link your device directly to the Android Market’s page for the application in question. From there you know what to do: download, rinse, and repeat. doubleTwist is promising to implement over-the-air downloads sometime this summer in order to provide a more seamless experience. The new feature does come with a fairly annoying, albeit minor, limitation: you can’t sort applications by category or genre. The Market browsing feature is set to hit the Mac version of doubleTwist today and its Windows counterpart “soon.” A web directory of the Market has also been launched and can be found here: http://apps.doubletwist.com/. What are your thoughts?

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  • AusFest

    Been using this for a while now. Works Good!

    • AusFest

      The syncing to itunes that is.

  • Steel

    I like the idea of DoubleTwist, but I find their tendency to prioritize Mac support odd. It’s a small percentage of the phone market, and Mac owners tend to want their own ecosystem, which iTunes is a part of.

    DoubleTwist should be focusing on becoming the main interface partner for the iPhone biggest threat, Android. And believe me, most Android people don’t own Macs.

    • JT

      Completely agree. I’d be surprised if Google hasn’t taken a look at doubleTwist. It would seem a good fit in the current climate with Apple.

    • Greg

      I use macs and have had the G1, the Cliq and the Nexus One.

    • (The real Jarrett) Jarrett

      @ Steel,

      It is a combination of two things. DoubleTwists founder is none other than DVD John. He is a known Mac user and after a sit down conversation a few years back with Steve Jobs he has been on a mission to build the iTunes equivalent to Windows. He was the first person to crack the iTunes DRM. Steve Jobs decided to have a talk with John. John explained to Steve that there was absolutely nothing Apple could do legally to him in regards to the idea (idea at the time) of DoubleTwist because all that was being done was associated with algorithm’s (public domain). Steve’s communication with him fell on John’s deaf ears and years later his company is routinely building out their product.

      John realizes that Microsoft has lost some 14 percentage points off of the OS marketshare. He also knows that Apple has added 6% or so to there’s. Business and success tells you to build out first for what is taking the market share and then build out second for second place. If you product is continually losing marketshare to the competition businesses generally build out for the growing first.

      • Steel

        @ Jarrett

        That’s valuable to know. However, I can’t see how losing a small percentage of their huge piece of the pie would put Windows behind Mac as a priority. If it was sensible to build first for the hot ticket, regardless of marketshare, developers would be jumping ship from Apple to Android.

        Which, slowly, is beginning to happen, though I think that’s due more to fairplay and SDK availability for the Android Market.

      • (The real Jarrett) Jarrett

        I think your idea of Android being the “hot” product is misguided. There are over 30 Android devices and Apple still sells more iPhone OS devices then all those Android devices combined. Hell, they sold more than twice as many iPhones last quarter compared to Android devices. Now factor in iPod Touches and that number is 4X’s. As popular as Android is becoming it is becoming that much more fragmented, which is what most developers complain about (Android developers). This is also what keeps current and to be developers from actually making a similar living developing for Android as they do for the iPhone OS.

        Now, as far marketshare per device goes, I beleive (and the numbers would confirm this) The Droid may be the height of Android “large number for a device”. The N1 has sold maybe 150,000 units this far. The next iPhone is around the corner and possibly one for Verizon (I personally doubt it). Then you have Windows Phone 7 series at the end of the year. HTC builds most of the Android hardware and the company has stated that they will support WP7 on roughly half of their wares.

        Android may have already peaked, no one may not that yet though. In a year things will look defferent than they look today. You and anyone could have added that last part though. :)

      • pulleeze

        Wrong. Your statistics are not current, and they are just wrong.

  • jamullian

    It seems to have crashed ….

  • James

    Haven’t used this, wondering how it compares to androlib.com

  • http://smartphonesnews.com/ Smart Phone News

    thanks for this info

  • http://www.geekextreme.com Travis

    cyrket.com

  • http://karlpoe.tumblr.com/ Karl Poe

    There are plenty of ways to browse Android Market: http://www.cyrket.com, http://www.andlib.com, http://www.appbrain.com — so nothing new here…

  • iRK

    This program is unreliable at best, for me. It’s way too slow, and takes awhile for it to load up. Of course, I have a big iTunes library (87,000 + tracks).

  • http://www.cireasa.com cireasa

    For Android, there already is AppBrain. Syncs programs in the market, you can browse apps and mark them for download on your phone (over the air sync).

  • joe

    So real soon I’ll be able to use doubletwist to do what androlib.com already does, only doubletwist won’t be able to do it as well as androlib does it?

    wow.

  • http://doubletwist Ted

    Double twists rule’s in that It argues that you can sync anything to anything and that proprietary always your friend but rather in your way.
    Disagree that android is more for p.c. All the Mac users I know are on android now (mostly Droid ). Androids doing what I was hoping Apple would’ve done when they started

  • http://theandroidsite.com The Android Site

    Yeah, this has been around for a while now. It’s called Cyrket.com

  • Brad

    I tried doubleTwist and some others, and finally ended up purchasing Missing Sync for Android for my HTC Droid Eris. It’s a bit pricey at $39.95, but it does its job very well. While the interface is a bit clunky, it just does pretty much everything. It syncs music, photos, videos, ringtones, and generic folders that store whatever kind of data files you want on your device. The music syncing integrates with both iTunes and WMP playlists (and does a better job of syncing with iTunes than doubleTwist, in my opinion). It also syncs your contacts and backs up your call log and SMS messages. And finally, it has an app installer, which doubleTwist does not.

    Oh, and while you currently have to plug in a USB cable to sync anything except your contacts, the next version, which is currently in beta testing, will have the ability to sync music, photos, and other stuff over both WiFi and Bluetooth, which you can already do with your contacts. They are also working on adding notes and calendar syncing. Believe me, this is well worth $40. The only big thing it’s missing is a music store connection, which is not an issue for me personally, though it may be for some.

  • CJ

    I tried double Twist and it’s just not full featured enough for serious users. It’s missing some of the most basic tag sorting that apps like MediaMonkey are better at. In fact I just use Zune software and windows explorer for drag and drop.

  • greg

    Here is another android directory http://bit.ly/ddkAK3 with QR codes for all

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