Sony offers 1,000 ringtones for iPhone for 20 bucks. Pass.

Let's file this under 'really bad ideas done poorly.' Sony would like to sell you 1,000 ringtones, sound effects, and comedy voices on a data DVD that's just oh so ready to import into iTunes. Sony doesn't seem to offer a comparable product for other cellphones, like maybe the Sony Ericsson brand, so I can only conclude this is a plot by Sony to make iPhone owners look dumb when a call comes in.

I listened to some of the samples on the Sony website, and the DVD seems to be a collection of bad and unmemorable production music, obnoxious sound effects, and jokey voices saying things like "Dude -- everybody keep your voice down, I think it's my Dad calling."
The musical ringtones I sampled sounded like a cross between dentist office music and some kind of horrible techno-rap mutation.

Ringtones are ways to personalize your phone, but these clips aren't personal and are often offensive. Sony has a demo installation video showing how to get the clips into your iPhone, and of course it's done on the Windows version of iTunes.

In the last few years, Sony seems to acting more and more clueless, and this is further evidence of the company losing touch with reality. The only thing that surprised me is that they aren't offering the collection on a Memory Stick, that proprietary piece of hardware Sony has been trying to push on the marketplace for more than 10 years.

There are a lot of ways to get ringtones on your iPhone -- GarageBand works well, there are plenty of third-party apps, and there's even a ringtone podcast -- but this Sony DVD shouldn't be one of them.

We're all compiling our holiday/Christmas gift ideas and lists. I might need to make a special list called 'don't buy me this or I'll kill you.'

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