“Ringtones, of course, are little 30-second snippets from pop songs that play on your cellphone when somebody calls. It’s an insanely profitable industry—to the tune of $5 billion a year, worldwide,” David Pogue blogs for The New York Times.
“Apple is selling a [user-customizable] ringtone and the full song together for $2, and… that’s a bargain… at least compared with existing sources for ringtone sales. Pop song ringtones from T-Mobile and Sprint cost $2.50 apiece; from Verizon, $3. You don’t get to customize them, choose the start and end points, adjust the looping and so on. Incredibly, after 90 days, every Sprint ringtone dies, and you have to pay another $2.50 if you want to keep it. Verizon’s last only a year,” Pogue reports.
“Now, I realize that it’s easy to get ringtones onto your phone (or iPhone) for free, using unauthorized techniques of varying degrees of difficulty. Thousands of people do ringtones that way, but I’m not even going there,” Pogue reports.
“And my intention isn’t to shoot the messenger by blaming Apple for the insanity of this pricing. Apple’s pricing is lower than any American carrier, offers customizability that nobody else does, and gets you both the ringtone and the full song,” Pogue writes. “No, I’m sure that, if you follow the ringtone gravy train to its source, you’ll find record-company executives. There they’ll be sitting, rubbing their hands together with glee and hoping that their young customers don’t identify the ringtone industry for what it is: the last great digital rip off.”
Full article here.
Someone’s got to pay for Middlebronfman’s yacht fuel, right?
What Microsoft and the music labels understand are subscription ringtones. Then you can have ALL of the ringtones. Imagine access to millions of ringtones. More is always better and it’s the best deal of all. I don’t see why the morons at Apple can’t get this very simple concept through their thick heads. You MAC lemmings are getting ripped off.
Welcome to the Social.™
Sprint ringtones die after 90 days???? I had no idea. What a screw job!
I’m happy with the ringtone that came with the iPhone.
I suppose being too busy and too lazy to change it has a lot to do with it.
I had forgotten about that 90-day limit on Sprint ringtones. Back when I had Sprint (never again, the worst coverage I’ve ever seen), I bought a ringtone (Mario Bros. Theme) and was quite happy with it. Then that fateful day, it said my time limit was up. I couldn’t believe I had paid $2.50 for something that lasted only 3 months.
zune tang,
this is the first time i responded to you, or at all, ever, on this board for that matter, but i read it every day.
your posts are great, and that was by far the best!
thanks,
hamdog
Has anyone ever pointed out the irony of kids (young and old) illegally downloading full CDs and movies, yet shelling out several dollars for a 15-30 second ringtone? I’m sure I’m not the only one to notice.
Apple’s plan seems quite reasonable for songs purchased off iTunes. Expiration dates?? Why tolerate such nonsense?
There are few things in the world I detest more than the custom ringtone market and people that use them. Low quality bites blaring from the tiny, tinny, over-driven speakers of crap-box phones… I really want to hear “I Got Friends in Low Places” 6 times in a row in the food court. Oh yeah, you’re so clever, you set “Imperial Attack” to play when your boss calls. How very droll. You should work in cinema, young jedi.
…sorry you all had to see that.
-c
My iPhone now plays some James Brown when the boss calls…
The Boss
Yeah…I’m cool.
I’ve had the same ringtone (“I Wanna Be Sedated” by The Ramones) on my Sprint phone for over two years and was only charged once.
Seriously, Sprint and Verizon ringtones kill themselves after a time? And people pay more for these crappy over-compressed mp3? I’ve never bought a ringtone because I had no desire to pay that much for something that I heard only when someone called. That they’re really only good temporarily is an insult that I’m glad I never fell for.
Pogue’s question in his article, “Why must I pay one fee to play it by tapping Play, and a second fee to play it when someone calls my phone?” is a good one. Why is that? No doubt that it is indeed the demands of the greedy record companies. I can’t wait for digital music distribution to take these asshats out permanently.
Look at me
you know what you see,
you see a bad mutha.
Ok… Pogue is smoking a big distilled kool-aid fatty.
There’s nothing about the iTunes ringtone system that remotely calls for the use of the word, “bargain.”
On top of that, not only is being forced to pay for something twice an insult of Microsoftian stature, the mere fact that Apple believes I do not have the right to install ringtones that I create from MY OWN intellectual property is detestable.
This is an all new Apple Computer, and one I don’t like very much at all.
oh, and by the way, the caps lock key on my dell is broken, as is my optical drive, and my sound board, and . . . .
wrong
dang. so’s the shift key.
I guess Zune Tang is referring to all those ringtones for that Zune phone that doesn’t exist…
Speaking of what does not exist, did Redmond close up shop on Zune already? That place is a ghost town, and with the new iPods launched, I am sure Redmond is now trying to figure out how to take their new Zune prototypes and rebuild them.
The upcoming Zune “nano killer” is a mid-sized nano/full-iPod. In other words, a no-mans-land product…
The new Zune wasn’t expecting to have to compete against an iPod classic model starting out with an 80 GB HD, and suddenly Redmond has pricing issues to burn out. But hey, that’s no problem, just burn up another $500 million in losses this quarter for the Zune/xBox360 “empire” no problem.
It is amazing to me that M$ shareholders allow this type of mis-management and hire by the thousands each and every quarter because that’ll fix things, game to continue.
Here’s to re-living the 90’s!
This is not a fair representation of Pogue’s article. He is far more critical of the whole industry than ythe snippets above suggest. In fact, he derides the fact that you have to pay for ringtones if you already “own” a song.
“If I buy and download a pop song legitimately, shouldn’t I be able to trigger playback any way I want? Why must I pay one fee to play it by tapping Play, and a second fee to play it when someone calls my phone? It just makes no sense.”
f two bucks for an effing ringtone…been using iToner and put on what I want. Works flawlessly.
It’s about time somebody mentioned it!
I couldn’t believe the complaints about iTunes ringtones. Everybody suddenly forgot that you had to pay separately for ringtones? That the music industry is eating off ringtones almost as much as albums these days and would never begin to give them away for free?
You can’t ADJUST SHIT with the other services! You take what snippet they GIVE YOU! And on top of that it’s more than double, sometimes triple the PRICE! THE AGONY! I downloaded a ringtone for my dad’s Verizon phone and just like Pogue said, it was $3.00. THREE FUCKIN DOLLARS! And worst of all, a lot of times you can’t buy a single ringtone, they force you to get 3 or 4 of them in a DAMN PACKAGE! AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!
And fuck me, they expire?! I had no idea of the expiration until now. How the hell did people complain in the face of this? They should’ve been on their knees when Steve Jobs made the announcement.
Sure there are ways to do it yourself but we’re talking paid services here and iTunes is the cream of the crop.
Custom ringtones are indulgent, and annoying.
I’d love to add them to my iPhone, but……
or you can <a hreg=”http://www.rogueamoeba.com/utm/posts/Article/MakeiPhoneRingtone-2007-09-11-09-00″>Roll Yer Own</A> iPhone Ringtones for free…
ya kno.. just in case you wanted to
remember to always proofread the syntax before hitting return
Free Ringtone Maker for iPhone
I like the idea of custom ringtones, but am I the only one that doesn’t want a song for a ringtone? Or a cute sound like a dog barking or old telephone?
Anyone find the Tony Soprano ringtone. See, that would be clever, subtle and not annoying to others.
I’m surprised that the Music Industry allowed Apple to do custom ringtones at any price. After all they pay a company in China and one in India good money to create the ringtones all the other carriers are selling at $2.00 to $3.00 a pop, most of the time bundled together in a package so, you have to buy 2 or 3 ringtones you don’t want to get the one you do want. So, that $3.00 expiring ringing bundled with the other say 2 ringtones you deleted cost you $9.00 plus tax and download time charges.
Apple has to charge you $0.99 for the song you buy from iTunes and then you create the ringtone you want and the recording industry makes Apple charge you another $0.99 to use the ringtone. So, you have the song and the ringtone forever. I’m sure Apple would have done the ringtones for free if it were not for the recording companies wanting all that extra money to use the songs as a Ringtones.
Ringtones are a rip-off no matter how you cut it, but the Kids spent lots of money on the latest ringtones. Parents if your child has a cellphone and you are paying the bill look for the extra ringtone charges every month, you’ll be amazed at how fast the ringtone charges pile up.