Make:

The way I understand it, this method of doing ringtones is incredibly abusive. You have to purchase the song for 99cents, and then to have the "privilege" of turning the content that you already purchased into a ringtone, you have to pay another 99cents. So, a ringtone costs a total of $1.98 overall! This is freaking Highway robbery!

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what if it's a song you ripped from a CD? i'm guessing/hoping you can do whatever you want with that?

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what??? you need to pay a buck on top of the initial dollar to advertise a song? will people not buy music because they heard 30 secconds of it on a ring tone?? and they are way overcharging with their entire line of new ipods. people will still buy them because their ipods. they are really milking it.

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It looks like it is only for the iPhone so far.

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@phil

I'm not entirely sure about that, but I wouldn't put it past them to require you to purchase the song from iTunes before you can use it as a ringtone. There's no mention of allowing you to use songs imported from CDs, so I doubt that they'll allow it. However we shall soon see.

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if that's the case we'll just need to show how to hack it...

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@phil (again)

I wasn't worried about ringtones really. I mean, people have already figured out how to add their own ringtones for free. I'm just disappointed that Apple would tow the industry line and charge extravagant prices for the privilege to advertise their music for them, when you already technically own the content.

Also, this brings up the use of content you created yourself. If I were to pull out my Midi keyboard, or record any sound I wanted, would I be able to use it as a ringtone? Likely not. I'm holding out on the iPhone until it gets software network unlocked. When that happens, I plan to get one and run as many hacks on it as I can.

BTW, Phil, maybe you should write a How 2.0 article on hacking iPhone ringtones for Pop Sci!

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You mean it can't just play any old mp3 as a ringtone like any other phone made in the last few years?

This seems to be a particularly ugly money-grabbing scheme from Apple. I don't think it deserves any free advertising from Make.

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As I understand it they will only allow you to use the songs you purchased from itunes.

I haven't taken the time to check the blog terms, and I apologize if I this sort of thing is not allowed, but I have come across a cool program that allows you to make unlimited ringtones called Iphoneringtonemaker at http://www.efksoft.com/products/iphoneringtonemaker/index.htm
. I actually haven't bought the software myself, but have used the free trial and it was pretty great and easy to use.

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Yeah, just another money-grabbing "innovation" from the wonderful folks at Apple. For those too dense or Mac-handicapped to use Audacity (free) and MyxerTones.com (also free.)

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