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."

PocketMac has been in the business of connecting Macs and handheld devices for quite some time, so it's not surprising that they have decided to start working on other ways to make our mobile devices more useful. Since our readers include Mac owners who use RIM BlackBerry devices, I jumped on the opportunity to give PocketMac's new Ringtone Studio for BlackBerry a try.

In case you're wondering if I've dropped out of the iPhone world, I didn't. I do a lot of work in the mobile world, so I have a lot of different devices, including a BlackBerry Pearl 8100. The built-in ring tones aren't exactly the type of thing you'd want to listen to more than once, so having a BlackBerry ringtone editor that runs on a Mac is a good thing.

I have just one gripe about RIngtone Studio; it's a single-function application, and the price tag -- US$29.95 -- is really quite high for something that just creates ringtones. PocketMac defends the price by noting that many BlackBerry users get into subscription ringtone plans that can cost as much as US$9.99 every month.

Just the other day we reviewed one ringtone maker for the iPhone, and now another worthy app has crossed my desk.

Ringer, from Pixel Research Labs, is another very easy to use app for the creation of iPhone ringtones. You can use any non-protected media file, including videos, and select it from the list built into the program, or simply drag and drop a file onto the Ringer palette.

The editing is very easy, with a nice large display of the waveform. Ringer balances the dynamic range of the audio, so you can hear the soft parts and not distort the loud parts. It also allows you to change the gap between rings, from nothing to 5 seconds, which is a thoughtful feature.

I like the ability to browse your collection of files, except it renders the titles in your playlist in alphabetical order (note the screen shot above), rather than the order you actually have the tracks in. Some people might like that, others won't. It should be a software switch.

When we review ringtone apps, we often hear from readers about how you can do this for free with GarageBand or other apps, and I agree. However, some may not want the extra steps those methods require, and would rather have something that is really easy.

Ringer accomplishes just that, with a fluid interface and no need to look up any instructions or scan the help files. I can create a GarageBand ringtone with the best of them, but I love the ability to get it done in a couple of seconds while this app filters my collection of tunes quickly and efficiently. Ringer is US$15.00, and as I said about the similarly-priced Pocket Mac Ringtone Studio, these apps are a bit pricey, but if you want it quick and easy they are really great.

Ringer requires Leopard 10.5 or greater.

There are a lot of ways to get ringtones on an iPhone. Some are easy. Some not so easy. Some are free. Some cost money.

A new release of PocketMac Ringtone Studio is about the easiest way to get ringtones on your phone, but it is not the cheapest. I think many users will be glad to buy the app, though, in exchange for the extreme ease of use.

Essentially, you drag and drop any MP3, AAC, M4A or a Quicktime movie file onto the app, highlight the part of the waveform you want, decide if you want to fade in and/or out, and Ringtone Studio will open iTunes if it isn't already open and put the file in the ringtones bin. That's it.

You can boost or lower the volume of any clip, and you can zoom in or out of the waveform for precise editing. Note: There is no onscreen button letting you know you can zoom. It's in the built in help files. You use Command-+ or Command-minus.

The only other thing I would like to see is the ability to rename your ringtone before sending it to iTunes. You can certainly rename it there, but doing it in the Ringtone Studio app would be perfect.

As I said, there are a lot of ways to do ringtones. You can buy them from the Apple, or use GarageBand, but I find the process has far too many steps. One favorite of mine is the Audiko website, which allows you to upload your clips, edit them online, and then download them and drag them into iTunes. It's free, and does the job.

Version 2 of Ringtone Studio is US$29.95 and has a 90 day money back guarantee. You can see some videos of how it works on the PocketMac website.

I think the app is a bit pricey for what it does, doubling in price since we first reviewed it, but it is very powerful and very easy to use. I think a lot of people will find it a perfect solution. Early buyers can get a free iPhone case. Ringtone Studio works with all iPhones, including phones running iPhone OS 3.0 and the new iPhone 3GS. The software requires Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard or above.

I just bought my first iPhone, a 32 GB iPhone 3G S, and found that that there is an abundance of information out there covering just about every aspect of its use. As an iPhone virgin, most of this is new to me, but I'm sure it's old hat to most.

Apple, however, is set to sell over half a million new iPhones this weekend, so I'm sure there are a lot of virgins in my position. This post and maybe some to follow are not meant for anyone who is fluent in iPhone, but rather for newbies like me. So, skip this if you've been at the party for awhile, but if you just ripped open your iPhone box, read on:

Ringtones
I tried making a ringtone from iTunes, but when right-clicking on a song and choosing 'create ringtone' I found that only songs purchased from the iTunes store could be used, at least in iTunes 8.2. In reality you can make a ringtone from any MP3. You can find the easy steps here.

Double Contacts and Calendar Entries
After setting up MobileMe and syncing my phone the first time, I found that all my contacts and calendar entries had been duplicated so that there were two identical entries of everything. Our own Chris Rawson set me straight on fixing this. If you disable calendar and contact syncing from the iPhone, all the information brought in from MobileMe will vanish. Next, re-enable them and you will be asked if you want to merge the contact and calendar information with what's on the iPhone (which was brought in by iTunes). You do. And in doing so, the problem will vanish. This tip is not just for iPhone 3G S owners, it's also happened to previous iPhone users who updated to system 3.0.

Period Space Bar Trick
When writing an email, typing the period key on my iPhone 3G S often does weird things like jumping down a line or two, slowing me down to a crawl. Chris Rawson also came to my aid by telling me that when you reach the end of a sentence, double tapping the space bar displays a period. This is much quicker for me, and my typing is cleaner. I'm not sure about earlier iPhones but for the iPhone 3G S, this must be set up manually. Go to settings-> general->keyboard and turn on the "." shortcut.

Applecare
There is no need to pay Apple $69 for AppleCare. I've been buying AppleCare from eBay at a decent savings for years. Often you don't get a full box, just a paper with the registration code, but I've never had a problem. Right now you can get AppleCare for $42 including shipping.

What have you found? If you have a problem or question and are too bashful to ask: ask here and we'll put our hive-mind right on it.

There is no shortage of ringtone solutions for getting tones onto the iPhone, especially after Apple opened up the phone enough to allow user generated ringtones without buying them from the iTunes store.

Now there is a bit of a new twist on the ringtone creation game. Ringtone Recorder Pro [App Store] allows you to use your iPhone as a recorder to get any sounds you can capture into your iPhone. It's US$0.99.

The method is, frankly, a bit convoluted. You hold up your iPhone to a speaker, or just talk and create a spoken ringtone. There is a 30 second limit. When you are done recording, you are asked for your email address (first use only), and then the file, in m4r (ringtone) format is mailed to you. It won't do you any good getting that file on your iPhone. You need to grab it on you laptop or desktop Mac. Drag the ringtone attachment to your iTunes library, and sync back to your phone.

Kind of a Rube Goldberg circuitous way of doing it, but those are the limitations of the current iPhone software. I'm not sure it will get any better in iPhone version 3.0 either.

At any rate, the app does what it claims to do, without any bugs or gotchas. Some people reading the description will think this app will allow you to capture music clips from your iPhone music, but that is not the case. If you really want to get a music ringtone on this, you're going to be holding this thing up to a speaker.

Audio quality is good, but it is hardly an ideal way to capture music. It worked very well for capturing my voice. There is a free version [App Store] of this application if you want to try it. It has ads, is slower at saving your recording, and is not quite as easy to use.

When the iPhone came out, things looked pretty bleak in the ringtone department. You were supposed to use the sounds that came with the iPhone, and like it. Things loosened up a bit, as Apple thought it was just fine to buy them from the iTunes store. If you already had the music you wanted to make into a ringtone, too bad, you had to buy the track again, and only if it was designated an 'official' ring tone capable song.

Then things got easier, and people started using GarageBand to do the deed, and Apple seemed to be looking the other way. Then iToner came out, and now we have PocketMac Ring tone Studio, which are utilities you can buy and create the ringtones you want from your own music. We've also reported on how to create ringtones using just iTunes.

Somewhat under the radar is Aukido. It's a website you can visit, upload one of your music tracks, cut it to a proper length, and even do a nice fade at the end so it isn't abrupt. I've tried it on a few tracks I own and it worked great. You can then download the track as an MP3, or better yet, the iPhones native M4R format. Then you drag it into your iTunes ringtone folder and you are ready to go.

The site is also crammed full of other ringtones people have created and left on the site. That could be legally murky, and I've only used my own tracks. Your mileage may vary, but Aukido is worth a look, and an upload/download.

You know those movie trailers that begin with the narrator intoning the familiar words "In a world...."? Beau Weaver, a Hollywood narrator and diehard TUAW reader who does a lot of those trailers, was asked by his friends to create an iPhone ringtone that played on the same phrase. He did, and he'd like to share it with TUAW readers for free.

Just pop over to Beau's website at http://www.spokenword.com/ringtone/, listen to the ringtone, and if you like it, follow our TUAW tutorial on how to create an iPhone ringtone from an MP3 with GarageBand. To download the MP3 for slicing and dicing in GarageBand, just Control-click the link and select Save Link As.

Thanks for the fun freebie, Beau!

An earlier post about PocketMac Ringtone Studio for iPhone reminded me of how I put together ringtones for my iPhone. I just fire up GarageBand and iTunes, do a little quick magic, and out come the ringtones I want.

This doesn't work with protected files such as those you've purchased from the iTunes Store -- hell, Apple wants you to spend $0.99 for the tune and another $0.99 to turn it into a ringtone. The method described here works very well turning those CD snippets that you've ripped into iTunes into ringtones. Follow along after the break for the step-by-step.

Information Appliance Associates, the company that brought us the PocketMac series of sync software, has announced PocketMac Ringtone Studio for iPhone.

While the $14.95 application doesn't do anything that you can't already do with GarageBand and a little bit of knowledge, it does make creation of custom iPhone ringtones a lot easier. You can drag any unprotected music or QuickTime movie file to PocketMac Ringtone Studio, select a 30-second bit for the ringtone, and then export the ringtone into the iTunes "Ringtones" folder. The video above shows the entire process, along with a strange "jazz and random banging on the piano" soundtrack.

There are some other alternatives available for creating your own ringtones:

• Rogue Amoeba's MakeiPhoneRingtone (free)
• Ambrosia Software's iToner (free to try, $15 to buy)

As usual, the PocketMac folks offer a 90-day "no questions" money back guarantee on their software.

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.