Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Software, iTunes, Apple, iPhone
MakeiPhoneRingtone hits 1.1, further obsoletes the ringtones racket
Rogue Amoeba has already updated their MakeiPhoneRingtone application to 1.1, in order to bring in the Cleverboy hack that was discovered the other day. If you missed it, they also posted a guide on how to turn any audio file into an AAC file with their product Fission (but don't forget that iTunes will also do it for you as well, it just won't cut your file for you). We're still waiting on someone to make a program that turns any file into a ringtone by itself (Rogue Amoeba is talking about adding the functionality straight to Fission), but all the tools are there.So Apple's whole ringtone system is completely, totally, and devastatingly broken. Why would anyone possibly pay money for ringtones from iTunes when it's so incredibly easy to make your own? As Gruber said in his great and very thorough commentary, the whole Ringtone racket is just that -- a racket. There's no such thing as a "ringtone" -- a ringtone is exactly the same as a song, in a different context. The idea that studios should charge more for you to choose which 30 seconds of a song you want to listen to is complete bunk.
And if you think ringtones are a joke (and I do -- I've been rolling my own ever since my first cellphone), just wait until you hear about "ringles". Unbelievable.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Ian said 4:47PM on 9-14-2007
"We're still waiting on someone to make a program that turns any file into a ringtone by itself"
Speaking of which...
Try my 'Make Ringtone' iTunes script, which converts and imports any* non-DRM AAC file in your iTunes library into an iPhone-compatible ringtone.
http://makeringtone.googlepages.com/
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Marcos said 4:51PM on 9-14-2007
>Why would anyone possibly pay money for ringtones
>from iTunes when it's so incredibly easy to make
>your own?
Well, you can make your own from UNPROTECTED content you own, but not from songs you buy from the iTS, right?
So presumably, someone likes this one song and wants it as a ringtone. He doesn't have the song in a CD because it's not worth buying the whole CD. He's not a pirate. So he pays 2 bucks and gets it over with in less than two minutes. Doesn't sound that terrible to me.
Now, if you own the song already because you got it from a CD or you created it in GarageBand or you recorded yourself burping, then this tool is great.
Now, I still think they should make it obvious and simple to turn unprotected songs into ringtones, though, and even songs you've already purchased. But they don't allow it, so I can absolutely see someone paying for it.
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James Donevan said 4:58PM on 9-14-2007
"So Apple's whole ringtone system is completely, totally, and devastatingly broken"
Devastatingly?
Can you spell 'hyperbole'?
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Aron Trimble said 5:03PM on 9-14-2007
I remember making ringtones on an old nokia by actually punching in different numbers and symbols to create MIDI ringtones on the fly!
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Alan said 5:05PM on 9-14-2007
And for people who don't want to buy Fission just to crop a ringtone, check out Audacity. Free and open-source, and it's simple to figure out.
http://audacity.sf.net
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Ashraf said 5:12PM on 9-14-2007
you can, in fact, get iTunes to cut your songs for you. Select the song, hit apple and "I" or right click and get info then go to the tab where you can set the rating and there are check boxes and blanks where you can set the start and end time. Set them to whatever segment you want as your ringtone then hit ok. Then, under the advanced menu option, select convert to aac. iTunes will only convert the selected segment and create it as a separate file
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PK said 5:36PM on 9-14-2007
Ashraf - thanks for that tip! I've definitely used the custom start and end time for playback of certain songs, but I'd never realized that it would also work for converting to AAC. Great find...
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aj_robins said 5:46PM on 9-14-2007
Foo. You beat me to it, James:
"Devastatingly"?
Hyperbole to the max, dude.
If Apple wanted to screw over the free ringtone users, they could really lock down iTunes. A little tweaking to the iPhone firmware, and Apple could even lock out third-party ringtone tools.
Devastatingly my ***.
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JR said 5:47PM on 9-14-2007
I second Audacity.
Great piece of software, opensource and best of all, it's free.
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aj_robins said 5:48PM on 9-14-2007
I don't think Audacity can convert to AAC ....
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Jon said 6:18PM on 9-14-2007
I use Audacity too. It is a wonderful piece of freeware. It will not convert to aac as far as I know, but I have used it to crop, then import my wav or aiff to iTunes, convert in iTunes to aac, and grab that new file. A little cumbersome perhaps, but it works and it's free.
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Frank said 9:46PM on 9-14-2007
thank you, Ashraf (#6) -- your instructions work perfectly to create a snippet in itunes. BUT, now i'm not getting how to get the file into my ringtones list. drag & drop ain't working, and it doesn't seem to automagically think it's a ringtone. the old trick of changing the extension worked before, but clearly there's something i'm missing here... can anyone help a brother out?
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Frank said 11:01PM on 9-14-2007
uh, never mind about my previous post. i'm a dork. never mind, please continue on...
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joven said 11:12PM on 9-14-2007
best program ever!
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Likely said 5:41AM on 9-15-2007
Anyone stupid enough to pay Apple for a ringtone deserves to pay the 'idiot fee' and it's not in Apple's interest to lock anyone out of anything (as history shows, any Apple sw and hw can be hacked).
"Can you spell 'hyperbole'?"
We all know what they mean but I bet they can spell 'anal'.
Funny
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wsnoble said 11:29AM on 9-15-2007
Hi
Do we know how to make separate ringtones for separate things yet?
Example: One ring tone for phone ringer and separate one for new email
I would like to have a separate one for email and SMS as I use this phone as a pager for me job also, and having a more annoying email or SMS ringtone will have a better chance of waking me @ 3:00am.
Cheers
-wsn
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Nathan said 7:40PM on 9-15-2007
The sendsong native app allows you to convert any song (I believe, I haven't paid attention whether the samples I tried were purchased or from CDs) into a ringtone. It works for me!
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scott said 2:42PM on 9-16-2007
I wasn't aware Obsolete could be used as a verb...
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