Thursday, September 13, 2007

Geek-out: iPhone Ringtone Snafu Explained?

Seems that the work-around (and Apple's faster-than-lightning "fix") I mentioned a few days back may have an explanation that leads to a permanent solution:
I just found YET ANOTHER way to create iTunes compatible ringtones. This method is probably the LAST WORD on this topic, because I think most other methods currently circulating around the web are somewhat more dubious and intricate (hacking).

It's not verified, so proceed with caution. I'd certainly be interested in a programmer's reaction… anyone?

3 comments:

phuff said...

I've seen the atomicparsley hack in other places. Makes sense. Of course, Apple can just keep changing the method that it uses to determine what "RingTones" are such that this won't work anymore, too...

Does the iPhone allow mp3 or wav ring-tones? You could always use the "analog hole" in that case: burn to a cd and rip as a wav or mp3 and use that as your ring tone, or if you have a mac/windows machine with audio out and audio in, just get a patch cable and play out the song and record it at the same time using audacity...

Frozen Okie said...

If the iPhone takes analog wav files or small mp3 files as ringtones you don't even need to do the audio in and out. There are plenty of programs around that will cut mp3s so you can save a new version that is just a clip of the original. There are also plenty of programs to re-encode from one format to another (including iTunes)

My phone can do mp3 ringtones, but the files from full mp3s are too big, so I've been cutting large ones down to a smaller size for a couple of years. It's music I own, I don't know why there would be a problem with me putting it on my phone (as opposed to in my car stereo's cd player or on my ipod)

I've always wondered why people would pay again for a song they already own, unless they're just too busy to spend the 5 minutes it takes to make a ringtone.

Silus Grok said...

Hey Michael!

It's actually not the making of the ringtone, exactly, but an issue of file management that is the stickler, here. The iPhone syncing software doesn't play well with others, so without a hack, un-purchased ringtones aren't displayed.

The funny thing, for me at least, is that I don't use custom ringtones… this is an issue of Apple not living up to its professed ideals — and I'm guessing its the record labels that are behind it all.

* mutters unkind words *