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Yup, and there are plenty of people who don't understand why people pay so much for an Android phone, especially the phablet stuff.

As for your son's android phone, maybe check one of these?

• AppleTV AirPlay Media Player
• AirSync: Sync Music, Videos, Podcasts &\1 iTunes playlists over WiFi
• AllCast for Android

The sad thing is, if this would've been Linux you would've been flamed for not doing enough research and having bought the wrong hardware....

I think DoubleTwist (from DVDJon's company) is also free of the iTunes requirement:

http://www.doubletwist.com/desktop/

Free software and I enjoy doing anything that gives DVDJon support for his efforts in reverse engineering stuff to increase interoperability.

No iTunes equivalent for Android? http://www.doubletwist.com/ has been around for a good while now, I'd say it fits that description...

There are multiple wallpaper apps from that developer; 75 in fact if the doubletwist search is to be believed.

Here's one more for the list. http://apps.doubletwist.com/ I actually like this one quite a lot.

I guess you don't want to have a Palm Pre or use Verizon's network, do you. :)

To pick a nit, Palm Pre is on Sprint, not Verizon, who incidentally refused to take the iPhone because Apple wanted it to be too uncrippled for their network. Also, it has little to do with non-iPhones as some other phones have their own sync applications that interface with iTunes XML files. Not that I condone Apple's blocking of the Palm Pre's phony iPod sync hack, which I thought was a nasty move on their part.

I happen to have both a Mac and a Palm Centro, which syncs with a PocketTunes sync application that's in late beta. (Many many others, such as Nokia, and Android, and Pre, already can sync with the Mac and the iTunes XML library files with some pretty nice software from "DVD Jon". http://www.doubletwist.com/dt/Home/Index.dt They support the Pre, without hacking it to look like an iPod. Apple probably won't shut this down, because they publish their iTunes XML in an SDK specifically for this purpose.)

You could always use DVD Jon's DoubleTwist to sync the Palm Pre.

It reads iTunes libraries (including those irritatingly hidden away on iPods/Phones) and syncs to lots of devices quite nicely.

It's not exactly full-featured enough yet to use as your main media player, but it's really useful for moving stuff between devices.

about iTunes. It's made to be a lock-in platform for Apple to sell more DRM-ladden music. There are other products (and free) out there that allows you to sync the Palm Pre: http://www.doubletwist.com/dt/Home/Index.dt DId I mention it's made by DVD Jon?

Amarok? Never before heard of it, but it looks interesting, if a bit cluttered. DVD Jon just released doubleTwist which talks to many kinds of devices, though it seems to ape the stupid of the iTunes UI.

The complaint that FairPlay requires specific software is a) hardly unique, since just about every DRM system does, and b) effectively false.

I don't claim that iTunes is perfect - the downloading of extra software is particularly troublesome - but it's a pretty decent piece of jukebox software.

Besides, Apple at least has shown a history of at least appearing to listen to customers' requests. Witness, for example, the advent of "iTunes Plus" songs on the iTMS.

I'd put money on http://www.doubletwist.com/ being next. Given the cross platform, Zune, iTunes etc applications it covers, Doubletwist would be a pretty high profile target to hit with a C & D.

Different product, different principles. The stuff on the Hymn page is made for simply stripping out the DRM, period. The DoubleTwist application is designed to remove it for the sole purpose of putting it on a device that doesn't support Apple's DRM. Whereas the whole purpose of the Hymn projects are simply to ditch the DRM entirely, thus making such applications worthless if they can't make the MP3'S inaccessible to the user, DoubleTwist wouldn't necessarily be harmed by making the MP3's it creates non-accessible to users outside of the target device.

I'd put money on http://www.doubletwist.com/ being next. Given the cross platform, Zune, iTunes etc applications it covers, Doubletwist would be a pretty high profile target to hit with a C & D.

If you read about the company you will see that they been around for a while and have $66 million in venture funding. It is also worth saying that the work DoubleTwist does (gene finding) tends to be cheaper than the work Celera does (sequencing), so funding is less of an issue.

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Personally, I'm a bit dubious. I checked out their genome portal about two months ago when they announced it. It had very few useful features, and the ones that were actually there didn't work.

What a coincidence!
I just finished mapping the entire human genome as well.. about a week ago.. I did it by copying web-pages about the genome and running them through the askjesus site.
I hadn't got around to letting anyone know yet, because I've been busy mowing the lawn, but I will defend my patents with great zeal!
-And they were suprised to hear doubletwists claim of completion.. Just wait till they hear mine!
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In my mind, when I hear 'portal' I think 'link farm'(one domain with links to diverse resources of information of interest to people from many differant walks of life). This aproach has proven usefull in finding information, and has proven valuable to many companies bottom line.

Doubletwist.com appears to have focused one a finite area of interest, and has choosen to "do one thing very well". Does this aproach match your definition of 'Portal'? What does the term mean to you?

A quote from the site: DoubleTwist is the first internet portal to make on-line genetic research fast, easy and free for all life science researchers.