Here's a clever concept that I would never have dreamed up myself in a million years: iTunes ringtone podcasts! The idea is this: you subscribe to podcast that delivers ringtones to iTunes and allows you to sync them directly to your iPhone. I gave it a try, downloading one "episode" and sure enough it was immediately available for iPhone syncing. There aren't a lot of ringtones at this point -- just variations on the teen/mosquito high-frequency buzz -- but as a proof of concept, it's very neat indeed. Hopefully others will pick up this idea and run with it. I'm not a big ringtone aficionado personally but I know a lot of people will love this -- especially for well chosen ringtones sampled from real life.

Thanks, Klaus.

So how do you know if Apple has made a big policy change and snuck it through the back door? Is it because:

1. Porcine aviation establishes itself as a viable transportation mechanism.
2. Chicken entrails begin to dance and rearrange themselves into oracular shapes while you're fixing up some nice korma.
3. Apple sneaks in a new technical support page adding a "Share > Send Ringtone to iTunes" option to Garage Band.

The answer is, if you've been playing along at home, three. One more blow against the official iTunes extortion and shakedown store.

Thanks Jerrod

Apple's 1.1.2 iPhone firmware release brought easy custom ringtones back to life. With 1.1.2 you can once again add end-user ringtones to iTunes and, from there, sync them to your iPhone. Did Apple intentionally thwart third party ringtones with its 1.1.1 firmware or not? Is the 1.1.2 reprieve an oversight or fixing an unintentional obstacle? Opinions vary.

For reasons I do not begin to understand, the combination of iTunes 7.5 and the 1.1.2 iPhone once again allow you to add custom ringtones without fussing with property lists and special software. Take any m4a file, thirty-seconds or less (although some report success with tracks up to 40 seconds), rename it to m4r and double-click to add it to iTunes. The file appears in your ringtones and can be synched--I tested this out myself--to your iPhone.

So has Apple relented? Or is this a momentary lapse of oversight? Only time will tell.

Thanks to Dave P

Looks like those Ambrosia Guys have made a break-through. This video shows their iToner utility working with the iPhone 1.1.1 firmware. iToner, as you may already know, allows you to install third-party ringtones onto your iPhone. So you can either use your personal audio collection or record your Mom saying "Pick up the phone!" and play that whenever she calls.

The 111-compatible update to iToner is still in beta but as this video shows, it should be arriving soon.

Now this is just getting silly. Apparently there is a bug with the iPhone where if you try to automatically sync more than eight ringtones up, only the first eight will sync. Nine, according to Apple, is too many ringtones to automatically sync up at one time. To get more than nine on, you've got to select the actual ringtones in iTunes, and set the iPhone to manually sync "selected ringtones."

We can't see how there's any feasible reason for that-- except that somehow, in Apple's contracts with AT&T or the record companies, it was specified that only eight ringtones can be synched at any one time. Loony. Either that, or this a just plain passive-aggressive swipe at the folks actually trying to get ringtones past Apple on the iPhone.

At any rate, slow down on the ringtone syncing, there, buddy. Nine is way too many.

Ambrosia is the maker of iToner, Mac-based software that adds third-party ringtones to your iPhone. Today Ambrosia issued a statement to TUAW saying that they remain committed to making iToner work with the iPhone 1.1.1 firmware.

The problem with 1.1.1 is that Apple has started encrypting and signing all iPhone content. This extra security layer makes the iPhone reject unofficial ringtones. In a phone call, Ambrosia said they are fixing the product, remain extremely optimistic and that users should look for a software update in the "very near future".

The full text of the statement is after the jump.

We wrote about Ringtonator a while back, reader Joe's GUI program that used Cleverboy's hack to make ringtones. At the time, we were looking for a program that didn't require AAC, where you could pull any mp3 out and turn it into an official ringtone on iTunes. Then 7.4.2 hit, and we had bigger problems with ringtones than just converting them from mp3.

But now, Joe's sent us his new version, called Ringtonator Studio, and he tells us that not only will it accept any Quicktime formats, but it will also let you crop your tunes, and then translate them directly into ringtones. And, he says over on his blog, it will work with iTunes 7.4.2. That's probably a YMMV thing, but if you're really frustrated that you haven't found a way to get around Apple's lockout, it's worth a try.

And no guarantee, of course, that any ringtones made won't disappear with 7.4.3. But kudos to Joe for putting this all together, and doing his part in the fight to give us control over our ringtones.

In the world of iPhone ringtones, there's the Apple way, and there's the way everyone else does it. For the latter, Ambrosia has released iToner which lets you use any MP3 or AAC as a ringtone for your iPhone (we first looked at iToner a couple of weeks ago). Changes in version 1.0.2 include:

1. Improved iTunes 7.4.x support
2. Fixes an issue where iTunes ringtones might not properly sync
3. Improved handling of playlists
4. GUI improvements

You already paid for you music, why pay for it again just to use it as a "ringtone?" iToner costs $15US and requires Mac OS 10.4.10 (and and iPhone. But you knew that).

[Via MacMinute]

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.

Last night, Joe sent us a GUI app he put together for Cleverboy's ringtone hack we posted yesterday. Ringtonator is a drag-and-drop application that will turn any AAC file into an iTunes/iPhone ringtone, or vice versa.

One caveat-- while this program doesn't require a separate install of AtomicParsley, the application that makes the metadata edit possible, it does still require AAC encoding on the sound file-- Joe says he might add in mp3 to AAC conversion at a later date, but he doesn't really have to, as it's easy enough to figure out how to do that.

But once you've got the AAC file, just drag it onto this little wrench phone thing, and iTunes (the current iteration, anyway) will play nice with it. Thanks, Joe!

Hacker par excellence Cleverboy, aka Dudley, has pretty much figured out what makes ringtones ringtones as far as iTunes is concerned. He discovered an atom in the m4a metadata that identifies the file's role. He downloaded a copy of AtomicParsley, the command-line metadata editor, and after a bit of hacking discovered that setting the "stik" metadata to 14 turned any aac file into a ringtone. He writes, "The file immediately appeared in my ringtone list, and after syncing, it appeared on my phone without one iota of complaint. --NONE".

The command in question is as follows:

AtomicParsley mmbop.m4a --stik value=14

Just 24 hours after enabling ringtones in the US iTunes store, Apple has added a "Top Ringtones" tracker [iTunes link] to the front page. As of this writing, Nickleback has a lock on the #1 slot [iTunes link].

This demonstrates that someone is buying these (just not very many TUAW readers). I'll admit that the next time my iPhone rings, everyone around me will be treated to Eddie Van Halen's solo from Unchained. I hope they like it.

[Via Twitter]

iTunes ringtones officially became available in the US iTunes store late last night (or early this morning, depending on where you live). It looks like fun, but will cost you another buck. Considering that you can make your own (until Apple breaks this routine again), we're wondering: Will you buy iTunes ringtones?

Take our informal poll and check back tomorrow for the results.

iTunes Ringtones store have started going live in stages. First, a note appeared when I enabled the Ringtones column, informing me that the iTunes store allows me to create ringtones from many songs. Next, grayed-out ringtones started appearing next to some tracks. I purchased a track--two actually because the first one would not download no matter how many times I checked for purchases--and after it downloaded to my purchases tapped the ringtone bell to create my own ringtone. As the gallery shows, I was able to use the m4r/m4a rename trick to get my custom ringtones to sync with the iPhone. Ironically, $3 later, my purchased iTunes ringtone will not.

Dud.