{"id":4696,"date":"2010-12-01T14:30:07","date_gmt":"2010-12-01T13:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tokao.com\/?p=4696"},"modified":"2010-12-01T14:30:07","modified_gmt":"2010-12-01T13:30:07","slug":"the-future-is-here-doubletwist-brings-wireless-sync-to-android-for-music-photos-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tokao.com\/wordpress\/2010\/12\/01\/the-future-is-here-doubletwist-brings-wireless-sync-to-android-for-music-photos-video\/","title":{"rendered":"The Future Is Here: DoubleTwist Brings Wireless Sync To Android For Music, Photos & Video"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier today, Winamp released a\u00a0new version of its Android application that allowed users to sync their music wirelessly with their Windows desktop (disclosure: Winamp and TechCrunch are both owned by AOL). It\u2019s a great feature, but in the race to become the \u2018iTunes of Android\u2019, another contender may already be about to lap Winamp.<\/p>\n

DoubleTwits offers a desktop media player that looks a\u00a0lot <\/em>like iTunes (which is no accident given the \u2018iTunes for Android\u2019 theme), and\u00a0it\u2019s added support for the Android App Store, a music store through Amazon MP3\u2032s API, and a directory of Podcasts. Today it\u2019s launching what\u2019s probably its coolest feature yet: wireless sync, which they\u2019re appropriately dubbing \u2018AirSync\u2019. And it\u2019s not just for music \u2014\u00a0DoubleTwist will let you wirelessly sync your movies, music, and photos.<\/p>\n

Given how powerful the feature is, setup is relatively painless. Install the latest DoubleTwist client for your Mac or PC, then download the new version of the Android app. Set your phone to connect to the same Wifi network as your computer, fire up the Android app, and hit the new \u2018AirSync\u2019 button. The desktop app will detect your phone, ask you to key in a passcode (this is similar to the Bluetooth pairing process), and from there you can configure the application to sync music, photos and video (photo sync is only available on Windows for now, but is coming soon for the Mac version).<\/p>\n

All in all, the process takes around three minutes, though the sync itself will take significantly longer\u00a0\u2014\u00a0possibly hours \u2014depending on your Wifi speed. There is one caveat though: DoubleTwist\u2019s Android application has historically been free; that\u2019s still true for the basic functionality, but you\u2019ll have to upgrade to a paid version if you want AirSync \u2014 it\u2019s a 99 cent upgrade for the first 10,000 users, and then will jump to $4.99 for everyone else.<\/p>\n

The coolest part about AirSync is that after the initial setup, everything should work automatically. Whenever you walk within range of your wireless network, DoubleTwist (the desktop client) will detect any new content on your phone and sync it back to the computer; you can also sync new content from your computer back to your device. This means that you can go out and shoot some videos on your phone, and, provided you don\u2019t walk immediately to your computer after getting home, they should already be waiting for you when you sit down at your desk (Ok, this also assumes you leave your computer on).<\/p>\n

It\u2019s quite impressive. Unfortunately there appear to be some issues.<\/p>\n

In a word, this is the future. Whether\u00a0DoubleTwist or Winamp or an official solution from Google becomes the standard, a world without annoying tethering is clearly the way things are headed.\u00a0DoubleTwist is the first that offers such deep integration, and it\u2019s\u00a0definitely\u00a0worth checking out.<\/p>\n

Given the timing of the launch (which was originally slated for yesterday but was pushed til today to QA test a new version), I reached out to DoubleTwist to see what they thought of Winamp\u2019s release. Aside from pointing out some feature differences (Winamp\u00a0doesn\u2019t support Macs and is for music only at this point), they also had this to say \u2014\u00a0they\u2019re not exactly mincing words:<\/p>\n

In general, we do not consider Winamp a competitor as they are geared towards a specific subcategory of users who don\u2019t mind endless menus, preferences and options. We are more focused on the mass market, average user who just wants to make the most out of their device without being overwhelmed by technology.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

(from techcrunch<\/a>)<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Earlier today, Winamp released a\u00a0new version of its Android application that allowed users to sync their music wirelessly with their Windows desktop (disclosure: Winamp and TechCrunch are both owned by AOL). It\u2019s a great feature, but in the race to become the \u2018iTunes of Android\u2019, another contender may already be about to lap Winamp. DoubleTwits […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,9,6],"class_list":["post-4696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-android","tag-google","tag-techcrunch"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tokao.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tokao.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tokao.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tokao.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tokao.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tokao.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4696\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tokao.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tokao.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tokao.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}