Doyce and Les both linked to this XKCD, which sent me to thinking about ringtones. My two cents:
I’ll confess that I am not as purist and virtuous as the narrator of the cartoon. Nor am I the sort of person who tailors a different ringtone for each possible caller, or who blares out their favorite tune-the-week, regardless of its suitability as a ringtone.
Suitability Factors:
- It must be audible. No point in having a ringtone that’s too soft, mellow, or low volume to be heard.
- It must not destroy all conversation around it (that’s a matter of selection as well as volume).
- It must not (via lyrics) offend if inadvertently played in the workplace, church, your kid’s school, your folks’ house, etc. “I Want to Bump Nasties With You” is probably inappropriate.
- Some people who hear your ringtone probably react badly to some genres of music. That’s their problem, sure, but it also redounds to you.
Indeed, on some level, ringtones are sort of like dress styles (and codes). They are a personal statement, sure, but they also draw a reaction as to both taste and propriety from those about you. After all, it’s not a ringtone going off just in your ear alone, but audibly to everyone around you. Personal taste needs to be tempered by the public intrusion.
Lyrics are dubious; either they are inaudible, or they make everyone stop to hear them.
It is suggested, but not required, to not choose the default ringtone on your phone, if only because when it goes off everyone else in the room will be fumbling for their purse / pocket / waist.
I’ve tended toward TV theme songs, usually with enough of a driving, insistent beat to provoke action (answer the phone, idiot!) while not being aesthetically objectionable, and trying to avoid ones that are too subtle or geeky. Currently I’m using the “prelude” music to BSG which fits most of my criteria (I think).
Using a “ringer” ringtone is a nice, retro idea, too. I might switch over to that once I get tired of what I currently have.
End of two cents.
I liked the Sonar one you had. 🙂
I use a ring tone that sounds like an old fashioned telephone ringing (i.e. a small bell hit many times rapidly). Perhaps that’s what you mean by a “ringer” ringtone. It works fine in most respects, but it makes some older people look around curiously, expecting to see an old-fashioned phone somewhere nearby.
I agree about lyrics being inappropriate and volume being a concern. I would add that the length of the ringtone should be short. A woman in one of my classes had the William Tell Overture as her ringtone. It went on and on and on, and she could not figure out how to silence the ringtone without answering the phone, which she could not do because it was in the middle of an exam. (Yes, I require that all phone be silenced during exams, but some students do not do as I require.)
What I personally want is a phone that will automatically silence the phone on a schedule I specify. As it is, I silence my phone before each class I teach, and I un-silence it after class. Unfortunately, I sometimes forget one or the other of these with predictable results.
P.S. A sonar ping would be a cool ring tone. Is that what you had, and if so, do you remember where you got it?
There’s a sonar ping ringtone here: http://www.mp3-ringtones-mobile.com/sonar-ping-369.html
I’m not too worried about the appropriateness of my ringtones. Almost nobody will hear them as I hardly ever get calls, and when I’m at work or in public places, I usually use an earbud so that I can listen to podcasts or music (or else I’ve switched my phone to vibrate).
I’m still using the old Spider-Man cartoon theme as my main ringtone, with “Down, Down to Goblin-town” (from the R-B Hobbit cartoon) for my LotRO-playing friend and “Where There’s a Whip” (from R-B’s The Return of the King for work.
1. The “ping” was a message alert (used for incoming mail/messaging from my boss).
2. With my Treo 650, I had a utility (Central, I think it was) that would, on regular schedules, shift profiles (silent mode vs regular vs phone only). It also would let you say, “Let me shift to quiet mode for the next 2 hrs” when going into a movie. It was very cool.
The RIM OS doesn’t seem to allow that capability, alas. At least, not with any utility I’ve found. It is a real annoyance.
3. I think “Down, down to Goblin Town” would draw a few too many glances for me — though it would make Katherine smile.
My wife has a most effective ringtone: It’s a recording of her voice saying “Pickupthephone! Pickupthephone! Pickupthephone!”
The first time I heard it, we had accidentally switched phones and I was driving to her office to bring it back. I heard the ring and said “I’m coming!” rather testily for someone who was alone in the car…
I had/have Darth Vader’s breathing for my “Normal” audible tone, mostly because I needed something I could hear that was sufficiently low volume and didn’t sound like a ringer at an office… so… heavy breathing.
Nowadays, I switch between vibrate and the Monday Night Football theme for loud environments. Mostly, I’ve been lazy about looking for new ringtones.
My ringtone is:
He rides across the nation, the thoroughbred of sin
He got the application that you just sent in
It needs evaluation, so let the games begin
A heinous crime, a show of force
(a murder would be nice of course)
Bad Horse, Bad Horse
Bad Horse, he’s bad
The evil league of evil is watching so beware
The grade that you receive’ll be your last, we swear
So make the bad horse gleeful, or he’ll make you his mare
You’re saddled up; there’s no recourse
It’s “hi-yo, silver!”
Signed: Bad Horse.
Heh.