Tutorials

How to transfer a ringtone to your Iphone

Considering how user friendly Apple products are known to be, they don’t like to make things too easy for users when it comes offering something they could be making money from.

When the Iphone first launched the only way you could get a custom ringtone onto your phone was to purchase it from the Itunes store. I’d like to think that due to popular demand, Apple have made it a little easier to put custom ringtones on your Iphone.

Here’s the short version

Step 1. Find an Iphone compatible Ringtone (hint:try bigzing.com)
Step 2. Save it to your PC (I’ve set up a ringtones folder in my Itunes folder)
Step 3. Make sure Itunes can find it (if you can’t see your ringtones when you click the label then try File>Add Folder and add your ringtones folder)
Step 4. Sync your phone

Thanks to Apple’s attempts to protect their ringtone sales, it’s a little more complicated than sending it via blue tooth across the table, but once you’ve done it once from then on it’s a piece of cake.

Grab MP3′s from your computer from anywhere

Pocket Picks has an article on how people can now download their music from their home computer to there phone from anywhere.

It involves setting up winamp and winamp remote on your computer then pointing your phones web browser to winamp.orb.com

I’m not sure if it’s a download or streaming service but I’ll leave it for someone else to try as my data charges with my provider are horrendous. I think I’ll stick to sideloading.

What is Sideloading ?

Put simply sideloading is transferring content or data from a computer to a mobile phone.

Sideloading is a great thing, it cuts down the cost of transferring ringtones, wallpapers etc to your phone. So instead of paying $6 day/week/month or whatever over priced fee they offer, you can copy your favourite mp3 across to your phone for free.
Another bonus is that you can also transfer things off your phone and onto your computer.

I get quite snap happy with my phone when I’m out with my friends. To transfer my pictures via wap or email costs me a fortune, so it was very rare I bothered.

My current phone (Motorola V6 Maxx) connects directly to my computers USB port with the same cable I use for my digital camera.

A survey conducted by Orange shows that 13% of users are now sideloading ringtones onto their phones.

Cellphone carriers were initially cool to the concept of sideloading. It cuts back on their revenue as you no longer need to use your data allowance to transfer ringtones, nor do they get their share for putting the cost of the ringtone onto your phone bill. (sometimes up to 50% of the price the consumer pays).

Some carriers restrict the sideloading feature on the phones they sell with firmware but this seems to be reducing as demand for the service picks up.

I can see sideloading taking off over the next few years as more modern phones penetrate the market and people get used to the concept. I can’t wait !

How To Make Ringtones out of MP3s using Itunes

Pocket Picks has produced a simple tutorial showing how you can shrink down your mp3′s to make them more suitable to use as ringtones. The tutorial uses the freely available Itunes software so more anyone can do it without paying for overpriced ringtones.

Transferring Ringtones to Your Phone

It used to be that the only easy way to get a ringtone onto your phone was to pay someone to send it to you.

With modern cell phones it’s now quite easy to transfer all sorts of files to your phone.

My new Motorola V6 Maxx came with a USB cable and some software that makes it almost as easy as copying music onto an MP3 player.

Check the book that came with your phone and find out if you can choose your own MP3′s as ringtones