The 16GB iPhone - in white. Optional Keychain not shown.

When Apple started using the color white as it’s industrial design foundation back in the 90s - it evoked all the coolest parts of Star Wars’ Storm Troopers, 2001: A Space Odyssey - and bathroom fixtures all at once.  It was a powerful design conceit that differentiated the company assertively for a decade - and big-banged out trends that are still rippling their way down the lower design food-chain today.

Then, with the advent of multicolored metal iPods, Black MacBooks and aluminum iMacs, Airs and Mac Pros, it looked as though His whiteness was finally, at long gasping last, bowing out.  And none too soon.

The fact is, the whole white consumer technology thing has been done to death.  There is all manner of non-Apple, white and plastic-chrome “iWhatevers” on the market.  So ubiquitous is the white and “chromed” plastic look that anything done that way today usually has “made in taiwan” embossed on the side or comes from a gum ball machine.

And then Apple unveiled the iPhone 3G.

When I saw the white and chrome iPhone 3G - an exclusive color way for the premium 16GB model - I remember mildly deflating and uttering, “…really…?”  And then I think I just squinted at it - waiting for the coolness to kick in.  A reality distortion field.  A different angle.  Anything.

But no - with all the industrial design tump of Hasbro’s plastic iDog, here was my favorite company’s most awesomest product announcement on Earth and it carried itself in the housing of a 4-year old Hello Kitty school supply compartment.  With free eraser.  I half expected to see a keychain ring hanging off one corner.

The application of ancient white plastic to the high-end iPhone model smacked of an obvious attempt to re-invigorate the material.  To wrest ownership of the scheme back from the i-imitators.  To scotch tape the bastard if necessary, back onto a pedestal, by serving as an indication of one’s having afforded the “high-end” model.

But instead, the thing felt old and just made me wonder if the exceptionally cooler looking 8GB model in black would be fine after all.

Turns out it is by the way.

I do have an old friend who chose the white model.  On purpose.  He said he thought it was cool. I said, “…really…?”  And he said, “Yeah it’s totally cool.”  I wasn’t totally convinced.  I think, like a lot of people, he just liked the idea that it would inherently communicate the status of his purchase.

I asked my wife what she thought about the design choice - she told me that it was probably just meant for girls.  I look forward to my friend reading that.

Either way - I hope it’s the last time we see such a cheap use of shiny white plastic and chrome in Apple’s industrial design for a long time.

The Apple I love sets trends.  I’m willing to forget this ever happened if the next iPhone has the sweet black anodized metal border of the iPod Touch… oh wait , they changed that to chrome -  DOH!

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But that’s never happened to me.

And smart people, which is most of us in this case, remember to turn off the ringer.  It does, however bring me to the point of this post -

My in-theater misanthropism has found a new mobile offender, and for once it is not audio related.  It’s those people who read sms messages during a movie.

You usually know who he is before the feature starts.  He glances at it while the lights are up and everyone is seating.  The possibility  already sinking in, you scrutinize him, his mannerisms, clothes, who he’s with, all in an effort to privately judge whether he’s one of those.  But hey - we all do that while the lights are up, right?  And then he does it during the trailers.  You’re behind him, but you stare at the back of his head anyway with your laser vision because you like the trailers, and even though your eyes have not completely adjusted to the dark room yet, that phone’s screen was bright enough to counter the sun ten minutes ago.  It’s just a trailer you remind yourself.  Maybe this is one of those feature-respectful false alarm people.  Fine.  And then you forget about it as the movie starts and whisks you away.

You’re distracted as he shifts his weight with purpose and immediately sense what’s about to happen - in fact you mentally dare him to.  And it’s startlingly bright.  I mean, it’s so bright that in that blackened room you see a Doppler Effect.  It doesn’t matter that he holds it low, in some feigned effort to be considerate - your pupils just constricted off.

I have learned that you can’t publicly ridicule screen abusers in a theater as you can “ring-holes.”  The lack of an original offending sound renders your otherwise audience-gratifying “Turn it off jackass!” unacceptable.

You can however, rest your foot on his chair back.  That provides options.

…taken the traditional ringtones to a whole new level of quality. As went the cassette tape being replaced by the CD, so goes the primitive ringtones of yesterday which are now being replaced with the Ringtunes(TM) of tomorrow. The company developed a proprietary algorithm that is capable of delivering music at near CD quality to your cell phone, limited only by the quality of phone you have and the specific cell phone carrier’s delivery system.

A couple things here, first - seriously?  No one trademarked the name “Ringtunes” before these guys?  Wow.  That alone is worthy of discussion.

As is the historic line “As went the cassette tape being replaced by the CD, so goes the primitive ringtones of yesterday which are now being replaced with the Ringtunes(TM) of tomorrow.”

Odd phrasing aside,I find it amusing that they felt the need to help us understand what an advancement in audio quality means at all, let alone by invoking an example from the early 80s that few who actually use ringtones would ever recall, having not yet been born.

It would appear that they have basically placed their company on advancing ringtone audio file information density to near CD quality - which intimates that they think the actual audio quality that comes from those weensy little speakers is going be improved.  Limited, of course, “only by the quality of your phone”.  Hold on… still laughing…  whew, that was good.

Um …nyeah not really.  With all due respect to the over eager algorithm writers, who undoubtedly did some fine work, no cell phone on Earth is going to enable anything close cd quality when it comes to ringtones… or tunes.  Phones aren’t likely to sound any different than whatever they sound like right now for a long, long time.  I mean, speakers are not exactly cutting edge science - it’s not like we’re on the cusp of some big technology breakthrough in those eentsy little, slightly crappy speakers which would warrant such an improvement in rungtune quality.  Is there?

Hey maybe we’re wrong… but then… not likely.

Read the full story HERE .

Hi all, I’m looking for a ringtone that just sounds like a real telephone!  A regular ring!  Did the world forget what a phone is supposed to sound like?

Or some such.  Basically these users want an audio recording of a telephone, circa 1992 or before.  The kind that had the loopy, spiral cord connecting the handset to the cradle.  The kind that came in avocado green, often had a dial, and connected to the wall with a wire.  A “real phone”.  Or worse a “telephone”.  Who calls it that anymore?

Some of you reading this were not alive when these phones existed, so I don’t blame you if my description fails to ring a bell as it were.

And if you’re one of these users who has been searching for a real telephone ringing sound for your mobile, a couple things:

a) that’s no longer a “real phone”.  Um, that’s an antique.  Seriously.  I know I know, it seems just like yesterday and all, but trust me - there is an exhibit in some technology museum where the phone you’re thinking of is displayed behind glass.

b) The bells in these antique phones were subject to all sorts of technical limitations that we don’t have today.  The sounds they made were there to alert - but the technology did not allow the creators to fine-tune the sound to individual taste, nor did the creators of those phones ever imagine the quantity of calls we would receive and how grating such a sound would become under the circumstance.

So your affinity for this sound is, sad to say, somewhat unrelated to “real”.

On the plus side, the technology today supports almost any sound you can think of.  Morse code perhaps?

There are Digital Natives, and there are Digital Immigrants.  Digital natives grew up in the midst of the Internet and the information revolution, and adapts to these tools effortlessly.  Digital immigrants grew up - well, a long time before that, and have had to learn a new digital language.  It can be difficult to identify which category some people fall within.  Others, not so much.

But it’s a sure bet that anyone who has been looking for a “real telephone” ring, ain’t no Native.

The rest of us - if politely - call you “Gramps”.

Open call for submissions:

“The Best Free iPhone Ringtone on Earth.”

In the spirit of promoting access to the best the net has to offer, this page will grow to become a centralized directory of awesome, free, iPhone ringtones for all to share.

If you made it, use it, or just heard it, and now you wanna share it, this is where you post it. Got it?

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.Submit your favorite free ringtones below.

• Include a direct link to the download page or file.

• Make sure submissions are iPhone-ready ( .m4r format.)  Include an MP3 for previewing if you wish.
  

• Make sure the submission is legal. Public domain, your own creation, or otherwise freely offered by the creator/copyright-holder is a must.
  

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Download iRingPro’s free iPhone Ringtones: Download page >>

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(NOTE: All submissions are subject to review by the iRingPro team. Any submissions that were illegally generated, or without copyright-owner permission, etc., will be removed. If you need to report such illegal postings, please let us know: Click here.)

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Q:

Does My iPhone Have to be Jailbroken to use iRingPro?

Dave W. San Francisco, CA

A:

Hi Dave, absolutely not.

However your question is perfectly understandable considering how much media attention has been devoted to users who “jailbreak” or “hack” their iPhones.

We can assure you, that iRingPro Professional Ringtones are entirely legal and allowed by Apple.  No such illegal or unauthorized jail-breaking activity of any sort is required to install and use iRingPro on iPhone, Original or 3G.

In fact, iPhone users have many other options for customizing ringers on their phones, they can pay extra at the iTunes Store for the rights to assign popular music as ringtones, they can purchase and install legally originated third party custom ringtones (such as iRingPro’s Professional Ringtones) or for those skilled in audio production, they can create their own music or sounds and convert them into M4R files with Apple’s GarageBand or any of the audio software tools (online and off) designed for the purpose.

All of these processes are entirely legal and allowed by Apple.

If you would like to acquaint yourself with iRingPro’s easy installation steps for the iPhone, please point your Internet browser to the following links:

Easy Installation for Mac OS X

Easy Installation for PC

Thanks again for the question.

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Sorry for the belligerent title.  But you know it, I know it, and everyone you know knows it, except maybe those 11-year-old-girls at the mall who smell like strawberry lip-smacker and buy those Live Strong-knock-off rubber bracelets that say “I’m Rad” at Wet Seal, that music-based ringtones are so very lame.

I’ve used them.  I confess.  At a time when there were no other options, before phones networked with PCs.  And yet, like most others, I can honestly say - the following is always true:

1. If you liked the song before you made it into a ringtone, you come to hate it after it’s a ringtone.
2. No matter how cool or witty the song choice may have seemed when you assigned it, all humor and hipness mysteriously evaporates into embarrassment the instant it rings in public.
3. You only ever hear the first 6 seconds of the clip, and the repetition of additional calls comes to grate on you and everyone around you in ear-shot.
4. You realize that at some point you actually started answering your phone to make it stop ringing, not to have a conversation.
5. You either start apologizing to the nearest ears every time your phone rings, or you try to ignore their stares and honestly pretend like you didn’t notice them there.
6. Having been interrupted or annoyed by your ringtone, associates start cracking jokes and making fun of it, so you get pretty good at telling the story of why you chose that song- via one of two tactics, either, you try to make the song sound emotionally meaningful to you, or you try to paint yourself as a fun, free-spirit who is just so fun and, well, free-spirited that having a silly song on your phone is just a sign of how fun and free-spirited you are. No matter your story-tactic, ultimately you’re just hoping your sincerity will convince these people to no longer think of you as somewhat dim and immature.
7. You find yourself changing the song choice often in an ultimately futile effort to find one that does not result in all of the above.  Through this process you spend a lot of money.
8. You occasionally have to remind yourself that everyone else uses music ringtones, so yeah, it’s totally cool and there’s nothing wrong with you doing it too.  At some point you realize that you’re reminding yourself of this more often than you would if it were true.
9. And finally,  as music alone, the song sounds like crap on the phone’s scratchy, tiny, treble speaker.

Did I miss anything?

Are we so desperate for customization that we swallow any half-baked business plan the carriers spoon feed us?

Maybe not.  Some people use online tools to side-step the carriers and convert their songs into ringtones - on purpose.  Which must mean that those users actually want music-based ringtones.  We think the more sophisticated of those users are just too busy to explore the landscape enough to find cooler alternatives.

There are even music-based ringtone hawkers on the net who write custom songs - specifically to be used  as ringtones.  With lyrics and everything.  We’ve never met anyone who actually uses such a thing, but assume someone does.

Then you have the adults among us, the sophisticated, mature set, who choose “classical”  music as ringtones.  As though somehow appreciation of these classic sonnets by kings over the centuries makes their beepy midi better than the latest Baby Mozart puppet show.  Spare us.

Yes, Music has a place on a phone.  In a media player app.  And someday - users across the globe - who have insanely stylish alerts - will look back at this time in history and softly chuckle at the music-based ringtone users of today.

What do you think?