The Great Ringtone Debate

November 5th, 2007

Nokia 6126I’m a big fan of Gapers Block, a local Chicago site. One of the regular features of Gapers Block is “Fuel,” a forum where a question of the week is posted, and the users answer and debate. The current topic is “What’s the ringtone on your cellphone?” This seemingly has turned into an anti-cellphone and anti-ringtone diatribe by many users. To quote one user, C-Note, “Vibrate. Ringtones are for shitheads.” Now, I realize that there are many, many people who have really bad ringtones — really loud unintelligible rap or the really loud unintelligible attention-seeking female starlet du jour. I hear it on the streets, trains and buses.

But I take a different approach to ringtones. First, I make my own. I’m not really interested in paying $2.99 or more to my provider (in my case, ‘The new at&t’) for a ringtone. Furthermore, I don’t like their selection. I tend to make my own. It’s fairly easy. I use an audio editing program, and trim the song or sound effect down to ringtone size, and upload it to my phone. I end up with higher quality tones that are usually unique. For instance, my ringer for business calls is an office phone (sounds like the phone ring they use in 24). I also have my phone set up to ring differently depending upon who is calling me, so I know before even looking at the phone whether I want to answer it or not. There is a camp which believes the phone should always be on vibrate. I, however, miss a lot of calls when the phone is on vibrate because I don’t always have the phone in my pants pocket. If its in my coat, my hoodie, or plugged in to the charger in another room, I would invariably miss calls. And being self-employed, missing calls is not a good thing.

Not all ringtones are bad. Sure, there are offenders more often than not, sonically assaulting you in public. But when done right, with moderation and taste, ringtones are a good thing.

Tags: , , , , , ,
Filed Under Rant
Trackback URI


2 Responses to “The Great Ringtone Debate”

Comments

  1. Nighthawk on November 8th, 2007 5:16 am

    Best ringtone: My friend has a cat meowing for his ringtone. Every time someone calls him everyone who hears it starts looking around for the cat. =D

  2. john hesketh on November 21st, 2008 12:53 am

    Meow im a cow

Leave a Reply