The folks behind doubleTwist have been providing an easy way to sync media with an Android device for a while. But up until now you’ve had to plug your phone into your computer using a USB cable to sync data, perhaps taking the whole “iTunes for Android” thing a bit too far. In order to transfer files over a USB connection, you also had to mount your phone’s SD card, which meant that you couldn’t always run apps installed on the SD card while syncing your phone.
Today doubleTwist launched a new app called AirSync which eliminates the need for cables.
Her’es how it works. You download the latest version of doubleTwist for your Mac or PC and run it. Then install doubleTwist on your Android phone and either click the AirSync icon to upgrade or download AirSync from the Market.
Next, your phone will give you a passcode. Select your device from the desktop version of doubleTwist and enter the passcode to pair your phone with your computer. Once that’s done, you can select the music, movies, and photos you want to synchronize and doubleTwist will do the whole thing over your home WiFi network.
It can take a while to transfer all of your data the first time, but once that’s done, doubleTwist will detect your mobile device whenever it’s on the network and make sure that any new files on your computer or phone are synchronized.
One thing that bugs me about the way doubleTwist synchronizes music is that you must first create a playlist before you can synchronize songs. You can’t simply select an artist or folder.
I’m also finding the wireless synchronization to be a bit buggy. After staring at the colorful spinning logo for a while, it stops abruptly, and the files I told it to sync are nowhere to be found on my phone. AirSync also seems to start up randomly and run for a few seconds when you least expect it. Your results may vary. I think my setup also confuses doubleTwist since I have both an iPod touch and an Android phone plugged into my PC.
For now, if you only need to sync music, Winamp might be a better option. But doubleTwist and AirSync are the only apps available for Android that can sync music and photos and videos over WiFi.
While the doubleTwist media player app for Android remains free and will continue to let you synchronize your media over a USB connection, the AirSync app will run $4.99. The first 10,000 people to download the app can get it for $0.99 though.
