Useful Tips for the Unlocked iPhone #3: Free Ringtones
Ever since I’ve a had a mobile phone that supported use of mp3s as ringtones, I’ve been making my own. When I got my iPhone, I was initially disappointed that, seemingly, the only way to do this was via the iTunes Store which involved paying for the ringtone - not something I’ve been accustomed to. I did some research and figured out that, since my phone was jailbreaked, it was possible to access the file system and add new ringtones that way but it was a convoluted process.
Then, quite by accident, I hit on another solution. I’d made an iPhone-compatible ringtone which I’d transferred to my phone sometime before and left the file on my desktop. When tidying up later, I didn’t recognise the file by title so I dragged it onto iTunes to play it. Lo and behold, iTunes imported the file and added it to my Ringtones list. I connected my iPhone and, sure enough, was able to sync the file to my phone - adding it to my custom ringtones list. I set about trying this with some other files and, along with some help from the internet, worked out what does and doesn’t work.
Free Ringtone requirements AAC file, saved with a .m4r extension Max 3MB filesize Maximum length: 30 seconds Must be DRM-free - i.e. not a track from the iTunes StoreFor the sake of this article, let’s go through the steps required to take a self-edited mp3 ringtone from your old mobile phone and convert it for, and transfer it to, the iPhone. If you haven’t edited a ringtone for a phone before you can use a free audio-editor like Audacity (available for Windows, Mac and Linux) to create a .wav file that will also work. All you will need is:
an appropriate .mp3/.wav file A means of transferring the file from your old phone to your computer (data cable, bluetooth etc) iTunes (I’m using version 7.6.2 on a Mac) The Process Transfer the .mp3 from your old...
