If you're an iPhone owner there's no doubt you've wished your iPhone allowed you to import custom ringtones. But until last week the only ways I knew of to do it involved heavy hacking of your phone or using iPhone Ringtone Maker under Windows (blech). In my opinion, neither option is at all pretty. So I was thrilled to learn that someone (namely Ambrosia Software) had introduced a totally Maclike way (iToner) to do it on a Mac.

iToner is an easy-to-use one-trick-pony of a Mac OS X application. Its one trick, however, is a really good one--it lets you install custom ringtones on your iPhone as easy as 1-2-3 as you can see here:

Just drag MP3 or M4A files onto its iPhone-like interface, click the Sync button, and wait a few seconds. When iToner finishes doing its thing, tap your iPhone's Settings button, Sounds button, and then its Ringtone button and select a new custom ringtone.

It's fast, it's easy, and it works. I've imported more than a dozen custom ringtones already and iToner has performed flawlessly each and every time. And, according to Ambrosia, ringtones installed with iToner will continue to work with future iPhone OS updates. Since there haven't been any updates since I got iToner, I was unable to test this. But I don't think Ambrosia would bother to say it if they didn't believe it was going to be true. (Furthermore, it wouldn't be much trouble to reinstall my custom ringtones after an iPhone update if I needed to.)

Now, I hear Alice Cooper's Under My Wheels ("The telephone is ringin'... you got me on the run...") whenever anyone calls me. And, since iToner-installed ringtone files are real ringtones as far as my iPhone is concerned, I can assign any custom ringtone to any contact stored on my iPhone. So now, when my daughter Allison calls, I hear Elvis Costello's Alison. When my teenage son phones me, my iPhone plays the bridge of the Who's Baba O' Reilly ("Teenage wasteland... only teenage wasteland..."). It should come as no surprise I've designated Van Halen's version of Roy Orbison's Pretty Woman as my wife's ringtone. And last, but certainly not least, when our fearless leader Bryan Chaffin calls me up, my iPhone announces the call with Jimmy Reed's Big Boss Man.

I'm tickled that Ambrosia Software has made it possible to install my custom ring tones and I think iToner absolutely rocks. But (there's always a but) there are a couple of things I wish iToner did...

First and foremost, I think a program like iToner should allow you edit (i.e. trim) your MP3 or M4A files before you import them. While some people don't mind importing a three or four minute song to use as a ringtone, I prefer my ringtones 30 or 40 seconds long, maximum. Furthermore, I like some ringtones to have a smooth fade in at the beginning and/or fade out at the end so they don't start or finish abruptly. iToner can't do either of these things. But it is only version 1.0 so I am hopeful these (and other) features may someday be added.

On the other hand, I have an excellent (and free) audio editing program called GarageBand on my hard disk, and with it I can easily do both--trim and fade--before I import a song as a ringtone. So that's what I have been doing and while it's not quite as clean and easy as having those features built into iToner, it didn't cost me anything extra and it does work, as shown here:

iToner has a 30 day trial period. During this period (at least until you register) there is a short delay at startup and another longer delay (Step 2 in the first picture) after you click the Sync button.

The Bottom Line

If you want a quick, easy, hack-free way to install your own ringtones on your iPhone, iToner is it. It would be nice if it included trimming and fading tools but even without them it's the first and only easy way for Mac users to import custom ringtones.