doubleTwist Corporation is a digital media company founded by Monique Farantzos and

Jon Lech Johansen Jon Lech Johansen (born November 18, 1983, in Harstad, Norway), also known as DVD Jon, is a Norwegian programmer who has worked on reverse engineering data formats. He wrote the DeCSS software, which decodes the Content Scramble System used fo ...

. It is backed by

Index Ventures Index Ventures is a European venture capital firm with headquarters in both San Francisco and London. It invests primarily in tech companies. History Index Ventures has its origins in a Switzerland, Swiss bond (finance), bond-trading firm cal ...

(

Skype Skype () was a proprietary telecommunications application operated by Skype Technologies, a division of Microsoft, best known for IP-based videotelephony, videoconferencing and voice calls. It also had instant messaging, file transfer, ...

Last.FM Last.fm is a music website founded in the United Kingdom in 2002. Utilizing a music recommender system known as "Audioscrobbler", Last.fm creates a detailed profile of each user's musical preferences by recording the details of the tracks they ...

) and Northzone Ventures. The doubleTwist application enables users to send photos and videos to their friends and sync their media library to a wide variety of portable devices.

Software

''doubleTwist Music Player'' is an application available for Android devices. It is compatible with

iTunes iTunes is a media player, media library, and mobile device management (MDM) utility developed by Apple. It is used to purchase, play, download and organize digital multimedia on personal computers running the macOS and Windows operating s ...

and

Windows Media Player Windows Media Player (WMP, officially referred to as Windows Media Player Legacy to retronym, distinguish it from Windows Media Player (2022), the new Windows Media Player introduced with Windows 11) is the first media player (application soft ...

, allowing users to sync movies, pictures, music, and playlists to their mobile device through

USB Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard, developed by USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF), for digital data transmission and power delivery between many types of electronics. It specifies the architecture, in particular the physical ...

. The software is available free of charge in the

Google Play Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store, Play Store, or sometimes the Android Store (and was formerly Android Market), is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certifie ...

app store. An in-app purchase enables "pro" features including "AirSync" which allows sync over

WiFi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for Wireless LAN, local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by ...

AirPlay Airplay is how frequently a song is being played through broadcasting on radio stations. A song which is being played several times every day (spins) would have a significant amount of airplay. Music which became very popular on jukeboxes, in n ...

UPnP Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) is a set of networking protocols on the Internet Protocol (IP) that permits networked devices, such as personal computers, printers, Gateway (telecommunications), Internet gateways, Wi-Fi access points and mobile de ...

/ DLNA support, equalizer, album art search, and removal of podcast ads. Some individual "pro" features are available for purchase either in-app or as separate apps. As of 5 June 2017, doubleTwist Media Player is in version 2.8.1 and has between 10,000,000 and 50,000,000 downloads. ''doubleTwist Sync'' is the companion application for

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

, required for USB sync. A free download is available on the company's homepage. It looks similar to

Apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...

media player, but with a few differences (such as the location of the album artwork). Under

macOS macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...

, the Android device must support USB MSC mass storage mode. For devices supporting only MTP, AirSync must be used.

Controversy

On Friday June 5, 2009, “The Cure for iPhone Envy” billboard ad was put up on the

BART Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is a rapid transit system serving the San Francisco Bay Area in California. BART serves List of Bay Area Rapid Transit stations, 50 stations along six routes and of track, including eBART, a spur line running t ...

exit outside the flagship San Francisco

Apple Store The Apple Store is a chain of Retail, retail stores owned and operated by Apple Inc. The stores sell, service and repair various Apple products, including Macintosh, Mac desktop and MacBook laptop personal computers, iPhone smartphones, iPad ta ...

. DoubleTwist's contract with BART’s ad agency specified that the ad would go up on Monday morning, the day of the

Apple Worldwide Developers Conference The Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) is an information technology conference held annually by Apple Inc. The conference is currently held at Apple Park in California. The event is used to showcase new software and technologies in the macO ...

keynote. However, the ad agency put the ad up early, on the Friday before. Shortly after the ad was put up, it was taken down by a BART employee. BART cited several advertising criteria violations as reasons for the ad being removed, including the original being too dark, and the subsequent redesign inappropriately having a white background. With

being a multimillion-dollar client of BART, it is widely suggested that Apple pressured BART into removing the ad. Some versions of DoubleTwist use

OpenCandy OpenCandy was an adware module and a potentially unwanted program classified as malware by many anti-virus vendors. They flagged OpenCandy due to its undesirable side-effects. It was designed to run during installation of other desired software. P ...

, which may install

adware Adware, often called advertising-supported software by its developers, is software that generates revenue by automatically displaying Online advertising, online advertisements in the user interface or on a screen presented during the installatio ...

potentially unwanted program A potentially unwanted program (PUP) or potentially unwanted application (PUA) is software that a user may perceive as unwanted or unnecessary. It is used as a subjective tagging criterion by security and parental control products. Such software ma ...

s unless the user opts out during installation.Should I Remove It? summary page for DoubleTwist
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References

External links

* * * * {{Authority control Companies based in San Francisco American companies established in 2007 Android (operating system) software Technology companies established in 2007