Domo Arigato, Mr. Auto…Ringtone

Mobile phone applications are the latest emergent trend that has set about to revolutionize the landscape of mobile phone use. Even as mobile phones have become more intricately developed and designed, each new phase of evolution has brought accompanying technological innovations that have snowballed into trends of their own – ringtones and applications being the most prevalent ones in recent years, with both the music industry and the software industry getting into the act and making their presence felt on mobile phones. There has been no shortage of trends blending both of those as well, with all manner of applications created to simplify and perform all sorts of ringtone-based functions for mobile users.

One application that takes a somewhat unique angle of approach to blending software and ringtones is AutoRingtone, which has been developed by the creators of the 100sounds application. The name AutoRingtone may not exactly strike most as particularly creative, but for the more film-savvy reader it may conjure up recollections of the “ship computer” character Auto from Disney and Pixar’s 2008 blockbuster, Wall-E. While something of a stretch, this is a connection that makes a good deal of sense here, considering that AutoRingtone basically translates text to speech, much in the vein of Auto’s adaptation of Macintosh’s old built-in text-to-speech translator.

No Tie Software has released this 99c application to provide users with high quality speech synthesis and a variety of sound effects to discreetly announce the name of incoming callers, much like audible caller ID. With a good-sized vocabulary of names to translate, the program allows a user to type in their name and the name of the contact to generate a ringtone for – ringtones of this sort follow the basic formula of “[user’s name], your phone is ringing; [caller’s name] is calling,” as a sort of robotic butler making a simple and straightforward report of an incoming call. To spice it up, additional descriptive phrases for the caller can be typed in. While somewhat staid, this may prove to be an interestingly discreet departure from the younger crowd’s music-blaring ringtones.

It may be instructive to note that the wide translation vocabulary isn’t in the app itself. AutoRingtone requires an internet connection, as it sends the typed-in data to No Tie Software’s server, which stores all the text-to-speech translation data and creates the ringtone in iPhone’s .m4r format, and the .AIFF format usable on other phone models. The ringtone will then be downloaded to iTunes on a computer then transferred to the iPhone. While somewhat messier than most automated processes, this is a small inconvenience that can be undertaken once for many ringtones – which makes sense for those seeking to overhaul their contacts list in one go, or even in parts by category.

Depending on the version downloaded, the app also offers the option of changing the “reader” voice – the Cyber edition, of course, features a variety of “Computer” voices [Dude, Gal, Girl, Guy, Kid, Lady, Man, Woman and Robot] while various Editions of the app – sold individually – allow for Male voices, Female Voices, USA or UK voices, Funny voices, and Musical voices. The Pro Edition features all of the above.

Related posts:

1. Wondershare’s iPhone Ringtone Maker Mobile media has always been a big seller, especially as...
2. Nigh-Infinite Ringtone Options from nFinity Mobile content has continued to be a reasonable strong force...
3. iSkysoft upgrades Ringtone Maker Even in the face of economic slowdown, mobile media is...
4. Ringtone up your iPhone Mobile media has blossomed into a strongly-performing commodity of late,...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.