Loud SMS/Ringtones for iPhone
Posted by Srinath
If you use an iPhone, you know the ringtones that come with it suck. Big time. They aren't loud enough to hear if you carry the phone in your pocket. After much searching, I've stumbled upon a ringtone that is really loud, and does the job well. As a bonus, there are 3 tones for SMS which are slightly louder than the ones built in.
For the ringtone, download the .m4r file here. Simply drag the file to iTunes, and it will show up as a new ringtone. Then you can sync your iPhone and voila, the tone will magically pop up in the Settings -> Sounds -> Ringtone menu.
To replace the SMS tones, you will need to access the filesystem on the iPhone, and then replace a couple of files.
- This can be done either via openSSH (if your phone is jailbroken) or you can use a program like iPhoneBrowser
- Navigate to /System/Library/Audio/UISounds directory
- The tones have the extension .caf. You will find 6 files named as sms-received1.caf to sms-received6.caf
- The iPhone OS does not allow us to add new SMS tones. Even if you drop in a new tone as sms-received7.caf, the tone will not pop up in the menu. So you will have to replace the tones that you do not like with the newer tones
- Get the 3 tones here. Expand the iPhone tab, and download the 3 .caf files
- Rename the files to the tones you want to replace (by default, the files will replace the last 3 tones, that is Horn, bell and electronic)
- Make a backup of the original files in the directory and replace the new files
- Goto Settings -> Sounds -> New Text Message and select the tones that you replaced. Note that the name of the tones will still be the same, but the actual tone would have changed by now
And thats that. Drop in your comments/doubts if any.
Preparing for the iPhone
Posted by Srinath
Yes, I'm taking the giant leap of faith and getting myself a spanking new iPhone 3G 16GB. My furious attempts at Twitter to win one of those new 3G's that were on various giveaways went in vein, so decided to take the practical way out. Unfortunately, the newly launched 3GS is way out of my league so I had to settle with the older but still respectable 3G on which I'm getting a decent deal (Getting it for almost Rs. 8000 less than the Indian market price).
I did have the choice between the iPhone 3G and the HTC Touch Diamond2. It was a tough decision, but in the end I chose the iPhone due to various reasons:
- 3.5mm audio jack - How could HTC leave this one out in such a high end phone? Simply beats me.
- Inbuilt memory of 16GB which is more than enough for my needs (need microSD cards for the diamond2 as it doesn't have inbuilt memory)
- Virtually an application for every need (and a few that you don't need too)
- Better battery life - Although HTC made amends to the battery over the original diamond, its still bad. Reading from reviews/user comments, it seems to be the most significant downer. And I'm a battery freak, and need enough juice to pull out a couple hours of music, browsing, and an hour of voice calls without being bothered about when the battery will run out
- Build quality - Though the diamond2 looks great, I don't think it can compete with the build quality of the iPhone
- Jailbreaking/Unlocking - This is a lame reason, but I've been fascinated with jailbreaking, installing other apps for the iphone ever since I've read about it on the internet. Sure must be exciting!
I've already downloaded redsn0w, iTunes and read up on a few tutorials. Should be getting the phone by Wednesday, and zip zap zoom!