To put this into context, doubleTwist debuted not just as an alternative music manager for people with or without Apple players, but as a giant, coded jab at iTunes, Apple, and the way they do business. After launch, DVD Jon, who created doubleTwist, spent a few months waging a small-scale PR war, hanging Apple-baiting banners in San Francisco and parodying their famous "1984" ad. With Amazon MP3 store integration, that ad's promise—to "bring you choice"—has come true, and it's worth a thousand PR stunts

As has been the case with every other aspect of doubleTwist, the music storefront looks like a simpler version of the one in iTunes. Navigation and searching are about as simple as they could be, as are downloads, which only take a few clicks. The whole experience will be familiar to anyone weened on Apple's bloated beast, apart from a few things: Amazon's album prices are often lower than iTunes', and of course, you can immediately sync any music you download—there's only music, by the way—to practically any device you own, be it a Pre, a BlackBerry, a Sandisk, an iPod, or whatever.

The first version is Mac-only and tied to Amazon's US store, but Windows (and international) versions are on their way. [doubleTwist via Techcrunch]

DVD Jon's doubleTwist ad was a little jab at Apple—the product itself enables flexibility Apple doesn't like, and DVD Jon plopped the ad right next door to the San Francisco Apple store. But the ad is on BART property, legally paid for, and so it's interesting that BART would remove the ad for reasons that are, shall we say, a bit dubious. Apple, of course, is a major BART advertiser, plastering iPod ads all over the transit system.

Of course, it's totally possible that the ad just needs to be transparent or translucent to let light through, and any opaque color would be inappropriate. But it's a little suspicious, no? [Boing Boing Gadgets]

If you're wondering how Apple allowed this to happen, the window technically belongs to BART—a Bay Area's transit system—and because the advertiser, DVD Jon, had purchased that specific ad space directly from BART, it's perfectly legal and there's not much that can be done about the "Cure for iPhone Envy" product placement. I'm curious to see what kind of marketing magic, if any, Apple's going to create in retaliation. [TechCrunch]

For those unfamiliar, DoubleTwist promises compatibility with most personal, consumer electronic devices, including cellphones, cameras, camcorders and MP3 players, for sync and management capability. Plus, they're constantly working to not only update the database of supported devices, but also the features within the software itself. You can also add friends who are also using the app to swap and stream files freely.

Anyways, its a really promising project that you should definitely give a try, if you already havent. [DoubleTwist for Windows (and Mac)]

The method doubleTwist uses isn't quite perfect, however. You drag and drop files onto the app, which then fast forwards the file in order to rip and re-encode the contents, which makes it a lossy conversion instead of a purely lossless ripping of the DRM. You can convert about 100 songs in half an hour—much more convenient than the old method of burning a CD, then ripping it back into iTunes.

The whole thing gives you a 5% degradation in sound quality, but is a small price to pay for someone who wants to migrate your music over into another biosphere, such as the PSP, the Zune, Nokia's N-Series, Sony Ericsson's phones, Palm and Windows Mobile (just for example). [Reuters]