DoubleTwist announced today that, in divergence from Apple’s mostly proprietary model, you now can transfer files from iTunes to other media devices including Nokia, Microsoft and Sony:

“When you receive an email, you can read it on your Blackberry, web mail, or Outlook. E-mail just works. With digital media such as video from a friend’s cell phone or your own iTunes playlists, it’s a jungle out there. It can be an hour-long exercise in futility to convert files to the correct format and transfer them to your Sony PSP or your phone” said Monique Farantzos, co-founder and CEO of doubleTwist. “The digital media landscape has become a tower of Babel, alienating and frustrating consumers. Our goal is to provide a simple and well integrated solution that the average consumer can use to eliminate the headaches associated with their expanding digital universe.”

Quote from a PDF announcement.

Sometimes people refer to security as a headache. I’ll try to sidestep that point. Hmmm, who owns the email content? Who “owns” the digital media? Maybe that’s his point.

Personally, I think the Nokia N96 is a much better device than the iPhone but I’m not sure I have enough incentive from Apple to want to use iTunes with the Nokia. Then again, I still remember when open mp3 file servers were hosted in Sweden and shared through the supercomputer center in San Diego, so maybe I’m just behind the times and need to learn to use a “free” Apple GUI to access pay-per-use music.