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If you use a Mac or own any of Apple’s iDevices, chances are that you use iTunes on a regular basis. The reason behind this is that iTunes had been dominating the digital media market on personal computers for a while now. Apple intelligently bundled iTunes with OS X and ensured little competition by designing all of its iDevices to sync and work perfectly with iTunes. However, iTunes’ dominance may soon be coming to an end, and doubleTwist just may be the spark that is needed for that to happen.

Many people dislike iTunes for many different reasons, such as excessive memory usage, complexity, and countless others. Yet, for people with iDevices in which certain features are only available within iTunes (such as the iPhone), there is no other choice but to download and use it, which again is an excellent strategy used by Apple to market their products. However, iTunes will undoubtedly be gaining some competition from doubleTwist, a great new iTunes alternative that will likely be converting a decent amount of current iTunes users.

The main feature that caught my attention with doubleTwist is its simplicity, something that iTunes is definitely lacking. Computer illiterate people will definitely find doubleTwist more attractive than iTunes, as performing simple tasks with it is, well, simple. doubleTwist’s UI is also very eye-pleasing and native-looking, with an obvious similarity to iTunes’. However, just because doubleTwist is much easier to navigate through than iTunes doesn’t make it inferior. Managing your digital media within doubleTwist is very efficient, as it should be.

doubleTwist’s collection of purchasable music is also quite impressive, thanks to its use of Amazon’s DRM-free MP3 store, which I definitely prefer to the iTunes Store, particularly because of the lower prices and greater selection. However, the lack of purchasable television shows, movies, ringtones, and iPhone/iPod touch applications is definitely a major downfall for doubleTwist, as all of Apple’s iDevices were designed for much more than just music. doubleTwist would definitely not be the best choice of software to use for iPhone and iPod touch owners, due to its lack of support for syncing applications, a major component of the devices.

Also, a consequence of doubleTwist’s simplicity is the lack of features many users find to be essential in a digital media managing application. Features such as smart playlists, music rating, and the ability to edit ID3 tags are nowhere to be found in doubleTwist, and may be enough of a reason for many users to remain with iTunes. One thing I also disliked about doubleTwist was its requirement to create an account before you can even use the application, which many users may find to be unnecessary and bothersome, as I did. While I cannot say that iTunes is exempt from this, they were more apparent in doubleTwist.

Below, I have broken down the categories of competition between iTunes and doubleTwist in regards to major issues and features:

Simplicity - doubleTwist is undoubtedly the winner here; its clean and easy-to-use interface and navigation is definitely a major selling point for the app.
Purchases - doubleTwist would win this category if it were only based on music, but due to iTunes’ availability of movies, TV shows, and iPhone/iPod touch applications, iTunes is the clear winner.
User Interface - In my opinion, both applications have a decent, native and surprisingly similar UI, so I’ll call this a tie.
Productivity - iTunes definitely wins this category due to doubleTwist’s lack of many important, complex features.
Media Management - This is another close one, since iTunes has support for more media types and has a much cleaner organization than doubleTwist, but doubleTwist supports many devices other than Apple’s iDevices, so I’ll have to call this one another tie.

In general, I would not consider doubleTwist to be a replacement for iTunes due to its lack of many important features, but rather an alternative digital media manager for the user who enjoys simplicity over functionality. I, for one, am in need of the functionality that iTunes provides, so I won’t be switching over any time soon. Which app do you prefer more? Let us know in the comments!

Products [iTunes] & [doubleTwist]