Mobile media has blossomed into a strongly-performing commodity of late, as it offers one a near boundless source of entertainment and personalization. Mobile content providers have tied up with music labels to make libraries available for mobile users, whether in the form of full songs or in the form of ringtones, and users have responded in kind. However, as far as things have gotten for mobile content, platforms such as Apple’s popular smartphone, the iPhone, have yet to fully capitalize on the sheer potential of ringtones. While there is a default range of ringtones available pre-installed, and 99c ringtones can be accessed through iTunes, there are many ways you can make your own.
John Brandon of Macworld.com recently put together a comprehensive look at various ringtone creation and adaptation programs for the iPhone. These standalone programs are generally user-friendly and streamlined for easy navigation, but have their pros and cons.
The first, PocketMac RingtoneStudio2 for iPhone, is a quick program that works with a drag-and-drop interface that resembles the iPhone. It helps create ringtones up to 30 seconds long by highlighting a portion of the full clip and clicking on a Create button; the current version includes fader options that allow a ringtone to be faded in and out, as well as a volume boost option and a waveform-editing interface similar to sound editing software. Up to 16x zoom helps pinpoint specific beats or marks in the clip to start or end from, and Brandon mentions that the current version also supports unlimited undo for volume adjustments. While generally fast – only seconds to create a ringtone from an MP3 file, which the program supports along with AAC, M4A and Quicktime formats [but not MPEG1 movies] – RingtoneStudio was shown to take a long time manipulating a 2GB video file converted from DVD. The app costs $20.
Xilisoft iPhone Ringtone Maker 1.0, on the other hand, was found to be compatible with more video and audio file formats — MP3, WAV, Windows Media [ostensibly referring to WMV and WMA], XviD, DivX, and various others. Its interface is a lot less flashy and classy than some other programs – resembling a late 1990s Windows application more than anything – but the program was found to be rather capable, able to convert files in a flash without any audio glitches and even managing the 2GB video file that RingtoneStudio had difficulty processing. The main complaint Brandon had was the lack of video preview, although the program allowed for slider selection.
Ringtone Maker costs $15, the same price as the next app, Pixel Research Labs Ringer. Ringer is more akin to RingtoneStudio than Ringtone Maker, largely due to the similar range of file formats supported [Xvid and DivX are not supported]. It does share Ringtone Maker’s lack of a video preview, however. The main strength Brandon found here was direct iTunes access, which allows you to click on an album or artist name, or on your playlist, and choose a file to customize from there. Its speed was also an asset, considering it loaded the 2GB video file in roughly three minutes and audio files in seconds. Its waveform selection interface follows a drag-selection mechanic to let you choose a 40-second clip, but its Zoom function is extremely limited. Nevertheless Brandon favors Ringer over these and other ringtone creation apps, influenced by factors like cost, speed and song selection.
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