Resist the urge to download that T.I. iPhone ringtone with YouTones

October 9, 2008 | MG Siegler | Comments |

People actually pay $0.99 for ringtones on the iPhone. I have to write that out because it still boggles my mind. It’s a clip of a song up to 30 seconds long, and yet people pay the same amount as they do for the entire song itself. I don’t care how badly I want a T.I. song as my ringtone (the hip hop artist has seven of the top 50 ringtones), I’m not paying one dime for one. So what to do?

Well, you could use a shady method to create your own from music you have, or you could get creative and use FunMobility’s new YouTones iPhone application. The app lets you record your own voice (or I suppose you could record a song through your phone’s receiver if you were really creative) and edit it with special effects to make yourself sound like a chipmunk, a space lord (Darth Vader) or other weird creations.

Lame? Kind of, but at $4.99 for the app, it beats paying the same amount for a grand total of two and a half minutes of incomplete music. You’ll also be able to do things like share ringtone creations with friends.

YouTones has already had some success on other carriers where it sells premium ringtones. The company cites research stating that the user-generated content market is going to grow from $1.1 billion in 2007 to $7.3 billion in 2011 — no word on if that takes into account the United States’ collapsing economy.

It’s all kind of a scam in my opinion, but at least making your own ringtones with an app is less of one.

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About the Author, MG Siegler

MG Siegler writes about technology trends and new media for VentureBeat, with a focus on mobile topics, social elements and key news stories. Before that, MG wrote about technology on his blog, ParisLemon. Originally from Ohio, MG attended the University of Michigan where he studied film. He's previously lived in Los Angeles where he worked in Hollywood and in San Diego where he did web development. He now lives in San Francisco.

  • MB
    This is showing only a voice record, does it also allow you to use songs that are already on the iphone?
  • MB, nope, only a voice record - that'd be too easy :)
  • erik
    um... i take it you don't know that you can cmd-click (or right click) any song in itunes and select "create ringtone" and just do this from itunes.... all for free and all legal.
  • You can right click to create a ringtone, that's true -- but it'll cost you 99 cents to do it. Go ahead and try :)
  • TT
    the .99 price point is actually attractive when you consider the $2.49 at&t changes per ringtone if you try to buy over the web or via (non iphone) device.
  • That is quite true, but a slightly less absurd rip-off is still a rip-off.
  • GarageBand will let you create a 40-second loop from any audio file, including your iTunes songs and then just go to "Share->Send Ringtone to iTunes" in the top menu. You can even drag and drop from your iTunes library into Garage Band.
  • Hawthorn
    You can also use Quicktime Pro's Export function to save an audio clip as an .m4v file. Change the extension to .m4r and drag it into iTunes.
  • Andrew
    myxer tunes, download the ringtone to your computer, drag into iTunes. Free and Simple.
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