News, info, and opinion by Mac users, for Mac users.

May 31, 2007

iphone

iTunes may become a lord of the ringtones

Posted May. 31, ’07, 8:24 AM PT by Dan Moren
Category | iPhone

iTunes Ringtones TabIs there anything more despicable in life than the sale of ringtones? Not only do vendors demand your firstborn as payment, but deals with carriers also often mean that should you even legitimately own a CD or MP3 of a song, your phone won’t easily let you turn that into a ringtone.

Heinous, if I may say so. And yet it appears that Apple itself has become complicit in this outrage. The new Terms of Service for iTunes clearly state (Section 9, Usage Rule VIII):

You may not use Products as a musical “ringer” in connection with phone calls.
This change is apparently new to iTunes 7.2, which, of course, also brought us DRM-free tunes that can easily be edited and chopped into ringtone-sized bits.

Whether this is purely Apple’s decision or is influenced by its deal with AT&T is a mystery, though I’d suspect the latter. The news does jibe with the screenshot we previously saw of the iTunes management for the iPhone, which included a “Ringtones” tab. Will iTunes enter the ringtone market, or will we all be forced to buy said chimes from AT&T?

[via Daring Fireball]


2 Comments

Ward Author Profile Page said:

Well, I guess they won't make it easy for us, but they're not going to stop us either.

Except I've always liked for my phone to sound like a phone.

May 31, 2007 9:47 AM
Dave-O said:

I had hoped that the Ringones tab was for ringtone management. Oh well, maybe we'll see a reduction in price if ringtones are sold on iTunes (it would be hard to sell the ringtone right next to the full track for more money).

May 31, 2007 11:44 AM

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