With the advent of advanced technology in cellular phones — especially “smart phones” such as the iPhone, BlackBerry, and Droid — the ability to customize preferences, appearance, and sound has led to an explosion in popularity of ringtones, so that incoming calls or text messages can be given with a particular sound or song in alert.
These tones are available depending on the specific model and carrier of cell phones, and can vary in length and complexity from a simple chirp to an excerpt of a full-length song. Some ringtones for cell phones are available for free, while others require a small fee for download. For some owners, a separate ringtone is used for individual callers, so that a couple will have a love song for one another while a friend or family member will have a trendy beat attached to their calls or texts.
A cell phone’s ring tone is adjustable in nearly every model of telephone on the market. Only the extreme no frills phones, such as the ultra cheap NET10 line of cell phones, do not allow for customization or downloadable content. The majority of ring tones are downloaded off third party web sites, such as jukebox.com, jamster.com, and phonezoo.com. There are hundreds if not thousands of these websites, and they offer some content for a nominal fee (usually around one to five dollars) while others are available for free. While some tunes are only available for certain makes of phones, such as AT+T or Sprint, most are programmed to be compatible with any brand.
Without a doubt the most popular type of content to download ringtones are contemporary songs. Most websites track their customer’s favorite song downloads; some go so far as to track the age range, so lists of younger users reveal that they most download tunes from Black Eyed Peas, Lady Gaga, or Rihanna while older customers have classic songs from Journey or Led Zeppelin. As these songs are not publicly owned, there is a royalty fee required for download, so songs usually cost several dollars. Some phones can identify songs played over the radio, download them, and use them as ring tones in a matter of seconds, although only the most expensive models are capable of this technology.
Although songs are the most popular downloaded content, some ringtones are modeled on simple sound bytes available all over the internet. These sound files may range from bird calls to car engines to catchphrases — in short, whatever one desires and however many files one can fit on a phone’s hard drive. Among younger customers, some sound files are lifted from video games; the Mario Brothers theme song or the sound of Sonic the Hedgehog collected rings are popular choices. The Jeopardy theme song is available for download, as are many intro songs of TV shows, such as Dexter, Lost, or Battlestar Galactica. If you have just purchased a new phone and are looking for a good variety of ringtones, it is as simple as a click away based on which particular song or sound file you are interested in.
Comments on this entry are closed.