Ringtones for iPhone

The iPhone is really cool with all the applications that you can download and use, from a Super Nintendo emulator, Sudoku and the NY city location finder with subway map (alway had to carry the map when in NY). With all this free stuff, how can you get ring tones into the iPhone.

Disclaimer: do at your own risk, I am not endorsing the methods or programs listed in this post. This method worked for my iPhone.

This is what I have discovered. Goto http://tonefm.com/

There are other sites, but this one has a good number is a number of different categories. They are also in mp3 format. You'll notice that if you play the tone, it only plays and doesn't download. In actual fact when something plays to a browser, it is actually downloading onto your computer (exceptions are a stream, but there are ways around that). To actually get the mp3 tone, I used Firefox and downloaded the free plug in called Download Helper. This is a free plug in will capture the tone and allow you to save the file to a folder.

Once you have the mp3 files, you need to download them to the iPhone. The easiest way is to use a piece of software called iToner (Mac only) available at:
http://www.ambrosiasw.com/utilities/itoner/

You can use it for free for a limited time or just purchase the program it is very cheap and well worth it. This program will sync to your iPhone and all you need to do is drag the mp3 into the iToner window and press sync.

To get your favorite song as a ring tone will require a bit of work or you can use iTunes and pay the 99 cents. If you want to do it yourself. Get a copy of Audacity at: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ , the program is open source and free.

This program will allow you to take a segment out of your favorite song. Most ring tones are a total of 24 seconds or less. Once you get this 24 second segment, you can save it to a audio format for download. I won't go into how this program works, you can read up on it once you download it.

I have not looked to see if there are equivalent or easy ways to do this on a PC. I am sure there are programs that will allow you to do this. I use both platforms but found it very simple with iToner. There are other ways like using sftp to get to the ring tones directory to get your ring tones loaded, but the method is for the more technical person. You can search the internet for the directions on this. You actually need to do this to load the NES games.