Mobile ringtones are about to get even more annoying now that mobile users can sing their own ringtones and then download them to their handsets, or download others’ if they really want to.
ReVoice Singtones let people record themselves singing to music tracks, and then re-tune and synchronise their singing to the music. Believe it or not, there’s apparently an online community where fans can record their own ringtones and share them with others.
The ringtones are recorded using free downloadable Singtone Studio software, where people can tweak their singing so they don’t sound like a tuneless foghorn. Users can then send their Singtones to both their own and their friends’ mobiles.
There’s even a phone-in Singtone Studio (Lite) service letting you record your singing from your mobile. That’s if you really want to sing into your mobile in public.
The Singtones Studio program can be downloaded here, or access via landline phones and mobiles. They are free to create, but cost £1.50 each to send to other people (or £5 for a bundle of four).
Mobile content provider Jamster is going to open an online content store for UK iPhone customers this Friday.
The portal, opening on Jamster’s website, will offer music videos, movie trailers and other promotional material for other films and TV shows. There will also be games from a handful of publishers, ready for customers to download.
During an introductory period, Jamster will let people use the store for free and once they’re hooked, it will introduce a subscription-based service in line with its other content.
[Via Mobile Entertainment]
Following Apple’s release of iTunes 7.4 last week (which enables the re-purchase of songs for 99¢ to use as iPhone ringtones) it was quickly discovered that it was rather easy to trick the app into synching non-purchased ringtones onto the handset. In iTunes 7.4 the workaround involves simply duplicating the AAC (MP4) track you want to use as a ringtone and setting your own start/ finish points in the track (use ‘Get Info’ in iTunes), then changing the file extension from M4A to M4R.
Upon realising what was going on, Apple quickly released iTunes 7.4.1 to claw back some cash address the issue. However, as reported by Engadget, there’s another, equally simple workaround: simply re-re-name the M4R files to M4A and they’ll be synched to your iPhone once more.
Expect iTunes 7.4.2 to be released in, ooh, about a day from now…
We’re not going to bother re-writing the press release from Apple about this — it says it well enough already…
iTunes customers will now be able to create custom ringtones by selecting up to a 30-second segment from over a million participating songs on iTunes and easily sync them onto their iPhone. Once a customer has purchased a participating song from iTunes, including previously purchased participating songs, it will only cost 99 cents to make up to a 30-second segment of that song into a ringtone and easily sync it onto their iPhone.
Customers can personalize their ringtones by choosing which portion of the song they want to use, and setting custom fade in and fade out points. iPhone users can assign a custom ringtone to be their default ringtone and they can also assign them to individual callers in their address book. Customers still have full use of the originally purchased song.
We think Apple is being unfair with this one: why not let you use an MP3 that you’ve already paid for as a ringtone? At least there are alternative solutions.
While Apple has yet to have pulled its finger out and launched its iPhone ringtone service, long-standing Mac software outfit Ambrosia has come up trumps with iToner. The iToner app offers a (very) simple drag ‘n’ drop interface for Mac users to add custom iPhone ringtones.
iToner costs $15 (£7.50) and, like Ambrosia’s other offerings, will nag the hell out of you if you keep using it without paying. Check it out by clicking here.
News bubbling out of Motorola Korea is that the company’s classic StarTac phone brand is making a comeback with this, the new StarTac III MS900.
The slim 89 × 49 × 20mm handset weighs in at just 92g - but while it sports a nice QVGA (240 x 320 pixel) screen and 128MB of on-board memory (and support for MP3 playback), it lacks an external screen and a camera. We can live without the former (especially as there’s an LED indicator to show what type of call you’re getting), but the latter seems essential for a handset to survive these days.
Still, it’s a nice looking phone, and call us old-school but we think there’s always something kind of cool about a flip-screen handset.
(Via Unwired View)
Announced in Japan at the tail-end of last year, Panasonic’s P903iTV was shown in Europe for the first time at last week’s 3GSM Congress in Barcelona.
Fitted with a twist ‘n’ flip QVGA screen and supporting 2GB microSD cards, the 110 x 50 x 22mm handset is tentatively slated for a February ship date.
Shiny phones are great, according to Softbank’s press release for the new 813T. The 813T arrives in four metallic finishes — pink, blue, silver, gold — and they are indeed very shiny. There’s more to the 813T than just a shiny surface, though: it has a 3.2-megapixel camera, GPS (to prevent you from getting lost in Tokyo), and a PC site browser. The 813T goes on sale in Japan at the end of March.
(Softbank English website)
Sliding phones are gaining popularity in Japan, although clamshell types still lead the way. This new Sanyo-built model is a slider — and a good all-rounder, by the looks of it. The W51SA has a 1GB data folder that is not only useful for storing tunes and photos of friends in various states of inebriation, but also for recording One-Seg TV broadcasts (five hours’ worth of footage can be stored on the W51SA for later viewing). The W51SA launches in Japan this month.
(Sanyo website)
They say justice tastes sweet. Well maybe not so much for British-supermodel-with-an-attitude Naomi Campbell, who has been convicted of assault and battery by a US judge over the allegation that she threw her mobile phone at her then-assistant in a fit of rage because she didn’t get something her way. She was ordered by the Judge to attend two days of community service, perhaps picking litter up across New York in a similar manner to Boy George. She was also ordered to pay $350 towards servant Ana Scolavino’s medical expenses.
(Via Textually)
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