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Twonky Mobile: A new kind of universal remote

The Twonky Mobile app lets you access your mobile phone's photos, videos, and music and stream it via a variety of networked devices.

Jasmine France Former Editor
2 min read
Twonky

SAN FRANCISCO--PacketVideo, creator of an interconnected multimedia streaming suite dubbed TwonkyMedia, will officially push out its mobile complement at the end CTIA's Fall 2010 conference on Friday, but that didn't stop the company from showing off the app at a swanky cocktail party in a SOMA loft a bit ahead of schedule.

Twonky Mobile is rather aptly described by the diagram at right, which we swiped off the Twonky Web site. In layman's terms, the app turns any Android phone into a really fancy universal remote for just about any networked media device on the market today, including the Apple TV, the Sonos systems, the Logitech Squeezebox, the XBox 360, and many more. All you need is the network password for any given spot and you're good to go.

The Twonky app can access any media on your phone, including the onboard library and any variety of Web favorites, such as YouTube, Flckr, and Last.fm. (Last.fm is a part of CBS Interactive, which also publishes CNET Reviews.) You can then stream the content to compatible devices, and control playback with your phone. Switching between different devices (such as your home setup and that of a friend) is a simple task of pulling up a connections menu and selecting the new output from the list.

Twonky screenshot
Twonky

In addition, Twonky Mobile is multitask compliant, so you can continue to take calls and use other functions of the phone without interrupting the media stream. You can also seamlessly sync content back to your PC, if you have the Twonky Manger software installed.

The app is currently available for Android only, with plans to expand to iOS in the future. You can find a free download by searching the Marketplace.