dTunes Allows Users to Download Music and Videos directly to the iPhone
dTunes, an iPhone app developed by Richard Shearman is a free alternative to iTunes for the jailbreak iPhone.
dTunes offers search & discovery service and allows iPhone users to download music & video directly to their iPhone.
However, one of the major concerns of this app is the piracy issue.
For music discovery, dTunes connects to music streaming site, SeeqPod by default within its built-in mini browser and searches for free music (in the format of mp3) based on your search term.
Once you find the desired music, just tap on it. dTunes allows you to either download it to the iPhone or play it directly in its media player via streaming. The integration with SeeqPod.com is pretty neat. Search for free music takes only a few seconds.
MP3 files downloaded are put under /var/mobile/Library/Downloads. dTunes comes with a "Browse" option to navigate all mp3 files under that folder. Tap on the mp3 file to play back it in media player. One cool feature introduced in the dTunes v2.6 is "Random Shake". It's now possible to shake your iPhone to skip to the next random track.
dTunes also comes with discovery service for Video. By default, it'll connect to tinytube.net for video search. The user interface is the same as that in music search. You can either download videos to the iPhone or play it directly using streaming.
You can also download torrents directly to iPhone via dTunes. dTunes has teamed up with iTorrentRelay and offers support for downloading Torrent files. iTorrentRelay is a web-based application built into dTunes that lets you manage and download Torrent files directly to iPhone. The Torrent files has been converted to a format suitable for iPhone and ready for dTunes to play back. iTorrentRelay, however, is not a free service. They are currently charging USD$9.99 per month.
One of the limitations of the iPhone app is that it cannot play digital content that has been synced to your iPhone from iTunes music library (not sure if it is some technical limitation).
Overall, dTunes is a nice application to find music and video. dTunes is a free application on Cydia (available via modmyi source). If you want to give dTunes a shot, you will need to jailbreak your iPhone first in case you haven't already.
But one of the major concerns of this app is the piracy issue, the app uses search and discovery service Seeqpod. Their FAQ says:
Is it legal to use SeeqPod?
Yes. Search engines are legal. Futher, we do not host content on our servers, and we strictly adhere to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. And along with other search engines, otherwise known as 'information location tools', we are a member of the Computer and Communications Industry Association, which advocates fair use of copyrighted content on the Internet and free speech, shielding search engines from liability.
SeeqPod does not support or facilitate the illegal download of copy written material or digital content.
However, the music industry doesn't seem to agree, Seeqpod was sued by Warner earlier this year, so please proceed with caution and only download legal music and videos.
[Source and Photos via Installerapps.com]
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Last time I tried dTunes it screwed up normal multimedia embeds in normal safari. I could no longer click on youtube videos or trailers for apple's trailers website using mobile safari to have them play. I ended up having to restore my iPhone to get this functionality back as even uninstalling dTunes didn't fix the problem.
Anyone know if this issue has been fixed (as I havn't tried it in a months.) I loved dTunes and would love to have it back but not if it is going to break stock functionality.
Posted by: Ben | November 29, 2008 at 01:28 PM
Hi
This problem is easily fixed by installing BossPrefs via Cydia, and also the Bossprefs SafariDL plug-in. dTunes fiddles with the safari download settings, so you can use this plug-in to toggle the safari fiddling on and off!
Enjoy
Posted by: Doug | November 29, 2008 at 03:20 PM
Doug,
Awesome, thanks for the info!
Posted by: Ben | November 29, 2008 at 04:27 PM
Hmm.. No offense but I smell a slow news day (not that that's iPhone Hacks' fault). dTunes has been around for a while now.
Posted by: InSovietRussiaPhoneEyesYou | November 30, 2008 at 05:58 AM
WTF is the pository for this dTunes thing ? Alot of people in the internet ask for a repo that works - nut no one answers them :@
Posted by: Tomaten | December 24, 2008 at 11:54 PM