Apple has turned on ringtones in their iTunes Store.
Songs available to be “ringtoned” are now accompanied by the ringtone symbol (bell icon):
iTunes customers are now able to create custom ringtones by selecting up to a 30-second segment from over a million participating songs on iTunes and easily sync them onto their iPhone. Once a customer has purchased a participating song from iTunes, including previously purchased participating songs, it will only cost 99 cents to make up to a 30-second segment of that song into a ringtone and easily sync it onto their iPhone. Customers can personalize their ringtones by choosing which portion of the song they want to use, and setting custom fade in and fade out points. iPhone users can assign a custom ringtone to be their default ringtone and they can also assign them to individual callers in their address book. Customers still have full use of the originally purchased song.
Visit Apple’s iTunes Store here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Joe” for the heads up.]
Weak…
A sad note:
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5ineq1dTvO7kyN6rHToVENuwBgwKw
“Birdland” would make and excellent ringtone!
say you pick a clip for your ringtone and pay your 99 cents. Then you change your mind, and want to re-edit from the same song. Pay another 99 cents? How does this work? Or if you want two different clips from the same song, for two different ringtones. Two times .99?
Doesn’t work in the Canada Store. I guess because we don’t have iPhones yet.
MW: party- I want to join the party!
Sucks that you can’t search for songs based on whether you can get a ringtone version or not.. You have to just look for your arist, song, or album like normal and then see if they have it. slow..
I’ll stick with Harp, Piano Riff and Marimba.
Although, the “teenage wasteland, they’re all wasted” line from The Who’s Baba O’Riley might be a nice warning to carry around.
“say you pick a clip for your ringtone and pay your 99 cents. Then you change your mind, and want to re-edit from the same song. Pay another 99 cents? How does this work”
It works by you making your mind up before you assign the ringtone instead of dittering around like some simple minded horse.
who needs ringtones??
it’s ridiculous
“dittering around like some simple minded horse.” I
‘m not saying I think that the ringtones are good value or that the OP does but that made me laugh out loud.
You should be able to create your own ringtone in Garage Band.
anyone who has a mac as already made ringtones long ago and charging for them is pure idocracy, this site censors wants only fluffy comments but has weaknesses as you can c they cant read every comment, site run by only one person gets busy when the making new stories can’t moderate so time enough to post but then they delete and ip ban you even if your a good person with apple issues over a product or want to see improvementneeds, ringtones from apple are great and I can’t seem to get enough of them, apple getting greedy.
iTunes Ringtones simply work GREAT!!
“instead of dittering around like some simple minded horse.”
So you’re saying that people yakity-yak a streak
and waste your time of day?
agreed…who needs ring tones? It always cracks me up when I see some high-powered suit running from the room, answering his cell, as some stupid ringtone is blasting away….you paid how much for that privilege? LOL
I guess this whole “ring tone pay additional $” stems from the “different use of licensed” material concept. You pay $X to license a song, which in theory you can play anytime you want on designated devices – in the old days: CD players, record players, tape decks, etc. Now MP3 players. Before digital, these devices were pretty “hard coded” and predictible by the owner of the license. Now, not so much.
The “use” was and always has been, for personal entertainment use and enjoyment. If you wanted it for another use – commerical, etc, you had to pay more, much more. If you wanted it exclusively and for an unlimited time, you paid even more, etc.
A “ringtone” is now requires a different device ….maybe….but has more of an utility use rather than a entertainment….and is more likely to be “played” many more times than it would as entertainment. The license owner wants to compensated additionally.
don’t know if that old model will survive this age……
At least it is clear now that the minimum cost for a ring-tone is 99¢ and not $1.98 i.e. you don’t HAVE to buy the song first. This compares well with other ring-tone download services, but iToner is starting to look good!
Forest Gump: Did you pull your post from the last few pages of Joyce’s Ulysses?
I made a ringtone, it was fun! Though hearing it on the iPhone, it could use an edit or two.
Indeed. M.X.N.T.4.1
“dittering around like some simple minded horse.”
That was the f@$&#xin;g funniest thing I have read in a long time.
Thanks Eddie, I needed that.
Well, you know, I wouldn’t buy one. But I just played around with the looping feature and it is really easy to do. Kinda fun.
Considering that kids generally pay $2.99 for ringtones, I think this will be huge.
Well done implementation Apple!
Holy Mackerel: 99¢ and not $1.98 i.e. you don’t HAVE to buy the song first.
Yes you do. If you already own a ringtone-enabled song, you don’t have to buy it AGAIN, but you do have to buy it once for $.99 and then ringtone for $.99
Eddie: It works by you making your mind up before you assign the ringtone instead of dittering around like some simple minded horse.
I hope you’re joking, Eddie. Why did we move from typewriters to personal computers in the first place? And why leave punchcards behind? Just get it right the first time. Take the backspace key off your keyboard for a few days and see how your efficiency and accuracy plummet.
Take off the blinders, sheep, and stop defending this position. iPhone users unite and refuse to pay this ridiculous extortion for something that’s supposed to CHANGE the old standard of cellphones, not just rename it and use it to screw users the same old ways.
Also, please consider this:
You can buy a song from iTunes, burn/rip, and use it to make as many different ringtones as I want for every other phone on the market today at NO ADDITIONAL COST. Just not for iPhone. A buck a try for iPhone.
They might as well change the logo for the iTunes Store: a carnival barker with balls and bottles. Knock ’em all down and win a prize! Just a buck a try!
Not really my thing, but still nice for the kids.
I do wish nieve people would quit complaining about the 99¢ price of the ring tones when EVERY other ringtone out there is $2.99 or more and some limit the use of that $2.99 ringtone to 3 months then the user has to buy it again. With Apple you pay $1.98 total, you have the ringtone forever, and you get the full song to play on the iPhone and your computer and you can burn it to CD. Plus stop bitching at Apple, it’s the greedy fucking record company’s that require paying for the ringtones.
Like I said, I’m not a ringtone buyer, I think it’s stupid, but if someone wants to buy a ringtone, Apple has the best setup!
With that said I do wish Apple would allow a way to add your own audio as a ringtone.
I have iToner and it’s great! The “billion” dollar ringtone industry is the biggest scam around. Being an iPhone owner that bought his phone the first weekend, I have less of a problem with the $200 price drop than I do with Apple’s ringtone service. Job’s says the iPhone is the greatest iPod we’ve ever made… and that’s true. So why can’t I use my music anyway that I want to use it on my iPhone? The music is already on it. Not having free ringtones and iChat on my iPhone gets my mad on at Jobs and Apple more than the any price drop on the iPhone!
Just curious–is there some technical reason why a song has to “participate” in order to be turned into a ringtone? What if I want to ringtone a song that I ripped from a CD, or a sound effect I created in some audio app? Is there a technical reason I can’t do this? Or is it just a silly marketing limitation?
I have 4117 in my iTunes library
and 3 are ringtone ready
oh well, back to garage band for me
This is sad. You pay 99c for a song to use on your iPod any time you want, and on the iPhone can play it using the internal speakers. But to use it as a ringtone you’re expected to pay *another* 99c ? Give me a break.
I like Apple. I have multiple Macs and iPods, and an iPhone. I have bought numerous albums, and over a hundred TV shows from Apple. But this time, Apple’s behavior is indefensible. Apple is being either greedy here, or capitulating to the record companies. Either way their behavior is bad.
As Phineas T Barnum once said, you won’t go broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public. If they buy ringtones from Apple, he was right.