Are Ringtones *always* Apps?

[tgm1024]

Sorry if this is an absurdly noob question

, but I still don't understand something.

Are ringtones always installed as applications (was this the intention of Google?), or is there supposed to be another mechanism by which they are obtained?

Thanks.

 

[gregs887]

Where are you getting your ringtones? If you plug your phone into your computer and create a folder called "ringtones" you can use .mp3 files.

 

[jefboyardee]

Are ringtones always installed as applications

No, they never are. They live as files in SD:media:ringtones.

 

[pool_shark]

Ringtones can go anywhere.
I use music for some ringtones and they are in a directory called my music with subdirectories with the name of the artists.

 

[jefboyardee]

Ringtones can go anywhere.

You right, my bad, but once you save part of an MP3 song as a ringtone, doesn’t that leave a new file in the ringtones folder?

 

[zuben el genub]

I think it depends on the format. I've used AAC (minute of silence) and have quite a few MID. They do need to go where Jeffboyardee said. I got in the habit of MID since they are instrumental. I don't want a ringtone with vocals.

I used the silent ring for spammers on a RIZR, BB, Nokia, and first Android.

 

[pool_shark]

You right, my bad, but once you save part of an MP3 song as a ringtone, doesn

 

[tgm1024]

Where are you getting your ringtones?

I haven't yet. But if I look for ringtones under play.google.com, there's only one category that DOES have them and that's the apps section. Like Scary Ringtones for example.

When I google for android ringtones in general, I get a number of sites but I don't want to give arbitrary sites my phone information, *nor* do I want to install a ringtone until I understand just what vehicle it's using (app or whatever).

I know that I can use mp3's as ringtones, but I am concerned about what the intent was. It's not at all clear to me how google intended this to happen.

Is play.google.com meant to contain ringtones elsewhere (than within apps)?

 

[mrsbelpit]

Oh, ok, when you search for ringtones in the play store, it will be apps. Google Play does not sell ringtones.

Look for the app ringdroid, and you can make your own, right on the phone, with any mp3 that's on your phone.

If you want to make ringtones on your computer with your own music, I would recommend Audacity.

Edit: If you want free ringtones through an app, rather than googling around, try Zedge. Zedge will allow you to download the ringtone as an mp3, and it's yours to keep whether you keep Zedge or not.

 

[jamesbil]

Where are you getting your ringtones? If you plug your phone into your computer and create a folder called "ringtones" you can use .mp3 files.

sounds like fun! can you give us a tutorial?

I want the Jaws tune for the wife and the bit from Psycho for the sister-in-law!

 

[tgm1024]

Oh, ok, when you search for ringtones in the play store, it will be apps. Google Play does not sell ringtones.

Look for the app ringdroid, and you can make your own, right on the phone, with any mp3 that's on your phone.

If you want to make ringtones on your computer with your own music, I would recommend Audacity.

Edit: If you want free ringtones through an app, rather than googling around, try Zedge. Zedge will allow you to download the ringtone as an mp3, and it's yours to keep whether you keep Zedge or not.

I did do that, and I did download an mp3. Twice actually (lol). My confusion is mounting.

1. where do such things go by default? It was downloaded from my droid4's brower, to their webpage, entering in their weirdo code (to get this particular charmer: Fart Sound Ringtone - 100% Unlimited Ringtones - The Newest Ringtones - ToneTweet.com) which then gave a link to download. I got a notification that it was downloaded, but no notice where. I'm approaching this phone more like I approach a regular operating system and discovering that there are so many default canned behaviors that I get dizzy.

2. Did I hear you right? Without an additional app there is no stock Android way to import an mp3 in as a ringtone? I would have thought that to be an obvious required functionality.

 

[Seanette]

In the stock Music app on my Triumph, it's possible to navigate through your music library to a file you want, then tell it to set as ringtone. OK, so this method makes that the default for your phone, but that's fixable and the newly selected track stays a ringtone.

 

[Curious Mew]

Services like Zedge offer ringtones, but I find most of their ringtones kinda silly/awkward. Perfect for my dad, not exactly fit for me.

Like gregs887 said, just create a "ringtones" folders within your phone, and drop some .mp3 files into it. I think you can create a "notifications" folder in there too. Some filetypes may not play on your phone, but I'm pretty sure there are apps out that can help with that.

Why some phones do not come with those ringtone/notification folders pre-loaded, is completely beyond me.

 

[zuben el genub]

If the ringtone/notification folders had all the phone's stuff preloaded, there are people like me who would delete it!

 

[pool_shark]

Services like Zedge offer ringtones, but I find most of their ringtones kinda silly/awkward. Perfect for my dad, not exactly fit for me.

Like gregs887 said, just create a "ringtones" folders within your phone, and drop some .mp3 files into it. I think you can create a "notifications" folder in there too. Some filetypes may not play on your phone, but I'm pretty sure there are apps out that can help with that.

Why some phones do not come with those ringtone/notification folders pre-loaded, is completely beyond me.

I assume they don't come preloaded because you don't need those folders, you can put the files anywhere you want.

 

[tgm1024]

I assume they don't come preloaded because you don't need those folders, you can put the files anywhere you want.

This is where SJ (Apple) had things generally right. People usually want to have things work smoothly out of the box in a unified way, not have to follow steps to get things to work. It's (again, my soapbox) a mindset issue at the development side. Where SJ goes a little overboard is his Draconian way of *limiting* the ways in which you can subsequently tailor your device (browsers/flash/sd card/upgradable memory, all sore spots). But when my engineers would come to me with the statement "but this is how you can do it", I would say "redesign"....if it's not in the nobrainer category out-of-the-box (note: out-of-the-box), even a B2B product will be hurt. Long conversation this.

 

[mrsbelpit]

I did do that, and I did download an mp3. Twice actually (lol). My confusion is mounting.

1. where do such things go by default? It was downloaded from my droid4's brower, to their webpage, entering in their weirdo code (to get this particular charmer: Fart Sound Ringtone - 100% Unlimited Ringtones - The Newest Ringtones - ToneTweet.com) which then gave a link to download. I got a notification that it was downloaded, but no notice where. I'm approaching this phone more like I approach a regular operating system and discovering that there are so many default canned behaviors that I get dizzy.

2. Did I hear you right? Without an additional app there is no stock Android way to import an mp3 in as a ringtone? I would have thought that to be an obvious required functionality.

1. Zedge for example makes a folder. If you were to go into your settings, it would ask you where you wanted to look for your tone, zedge or android system. If you were to make a ringtone and dropbox it to your phone, download it, you can put it in the ringtone or notification folder in the android system via a file manager, although I've never had to do that, it's automatic.

2. I'm not sure what you're asking. If the file is a ringtone mp3 that did not come from a specific app, it will show up in the android system ringtone chooser. It has on every phone I've ever had.

 

[lunatic59]

This is where SJ (Apple) had things generally right. People usually want to have things work smoothly out of the box in a unified way, not have to follow steps to get things to work. It's (again, my soapbox) a mindset issue at the development side. Where SJ goes a little overboard is his Draconian way of *limiting* the ways in which you can subsequently tailor your device (browsers/flash/sd card/upgradable memory, all sore spots). But when my engineers would come to me with the statement "but this is how you can do it", I would say "redesign"....if it's not in the nobrainer category out-of-the-box (note: out-of-the-box), even a B2B product will be hurt. Long conversation this.

Not to get into a whole dissertation about design philosophy and paradigms, the problem is that if the "designed" way of doing things isn't my desired way of doing it, and if it's hard coded into the thing, changing it makes it much harder, if possible at all, so what you have is people adapting to the device, rather than adapting the device to to the person.

Given the success of Android and iOS, both seem to be very successful models, which, in the long run, is good for everybody.

 

[pool_shark]

Not to get into a whole dissertation about design philosophy and paradigms, the problem is that if the "designed" way of doing things isn't my desired way of doing it, and if it's hard coded into the thing, changing it makes it much harder, if possible at all, so what you have is people adapting to the device, rather than adapting the device to to the person.

Given the success of Android and iOS, both seem to be very successful models, which, in the long run, is good for everybody.

I agree, I don't want to have to use a ringtones or notifications directory.
I use some of my songs as ringtones, I see no need to have two copies of the song so that I can have it set the way I do my music, and to be able to use it as a ringtone.

 

[ForkliftFred]

Once again, it sounds like Android is happy to give you the choice. If you like to keep you ringtones and notifications separate from your music for easy file management then you can but the OS will happily use the mp3 from wherever you have put it. You can use music from your music folders if you want to but if you want your ringtones to be just sounds or even music clips rather than whole songs, then why would you want to put them in the music folder? In that instance it makes sense to put them in their own folder.

The point is, you can use MP3 files that are stored anywhere on your device so you can manage them however you want. Or is that not the case?

 

[tgm1024]

Once again, it sounds like Android is happy to give you the choice. If you like to keep you ringtones and notifications separate from your music for easy file management then you can but the OS will happily use the mp3 from wherever you have put it. You can use music from your music folders if you want to but if you want your ringtones to be just sounds or even music clips rather than whole songs, then why would you want to put them in the music folder? In that instance it makes sense to put them in their own folder.

The point is, you can use MP3 files that are stored anywhere on your device so you can manage them however you want. Or is that not the case?

There is absolutely nothing in what I said that is against a choice. In fact, I was clear--->after the out-of-box experience, having tailoring ability is an advantage---something that SJ missed.

It is so easy to misconstrue the notion of having something smoothly preconfigured vs. preconfigured and fixed at that configuration. Most of the objections I see here are making that very confusion. Having things tailorable is admirable after it starts preconfigured without even the slightest effort.

Every ringtone should be a slam-dunk single click maneuver, regardless of source or convertable format. I'll back out of this argument for now---it's a war I've fought endlessly in my prior lifetimes and thankfully have won. There just is no advantage to having things open-ended /without/ out-of-the-box not smoothly a slam dunk. Even having to hunt around for an import mechanism isn't quite right.

Similar topic--->I wonder if the stock android ICS (note---not the re-skinned hooey from Acme Phone Inc, I mean the rooted original) moves closer to this.

 

[lunatic59]

Similar topic--->I wonder if the stock android ICS (note---not the re-skinned hooey from Acme Phone Inc, I mean the rooted original) moves closer to this.

Strictly in terms of ringtones, when you are editing a contact in ICS and you select the ringtone option, a pop-up prompts you to select from default (using the system-set ringtone), ringtones (any stock tone or those located in a "ringtones" folder) or browse files to find any supported audio file.

 

[tgm1024]

Strictly in terms of ringtones, when you are editing a contact in ICS and you select the ringtone option, a pop-up prompts you to select from default (using the system-set ringtone), ringtones (any stock tone or those located in a "ringtones" folder) or browse files to find any supported audio file.

Oh, good, that's closer to what I would hope a design would be. For yucks, my first take on what be nice is to have Google to make use of ID3 tags (field content of "Android Ringtone" or something), so that sites offering ringtones would allow all applications receiving the mp3 (browsers/music apps/phone settings/anything) to know immediately what it might be for and offer options accordingly right away.

I'm still teething my way into this, so I can't tell where the bodies are buried with respect to this concern of mine: Stock android (GB) or my DROID4 stock hooey. For instance, in the main settings, when I look under the sound settings for setting ringtones, I can choose any of the built-ins. Okidoki---same as every phone I've seen after my bulky car-phone. But there is no readily available option for "Import your own" in that :egg: list (a common MO in GUI design). Nor is there any way visually attached to that sound settings that I can see.

 

[lunatic59]

I'm still teething my way into this, so I can't tell where the bodies are buried ...

Exit 13B, I-95 under the off-ramp, right next to Jimmy Hoffa.

...with respect to this concern of mine: Stock android (GB) or my DROID4 stock hooey. For instance, in the main settings, when I look under the sound settings for setting ringtones, I can choose any of the built-ins. Okidoki---same as every phone I've seen after my bulky car-phone. But there is no readily available option for "Import your own" in that :egg: list (a common MO in GUI design). Nor is there any way visually attached to that sound settings that I can see.

And that continues with ICS. If you are assigning a global default ringtone, you will still either have to put them in a folder named "ringtones" or use an app that does it for you. I don't understand the reasoning behind that decision, but I'm not a ringtone junkie so I have my standard set of custom tones, leave them in the folder and don't think any more about it.

If I were to postulate, I would say that the idea is to leave the opportunity for a developer to write an app to modify custom features, rather than have it built into the OS.

 

[pool_shark]

Exit 13B, I-95 under the off-ramp, right next to Jimmy Hoffa.




And that continues with ICS. If you are assigning a global default ringtone, you will still either have to put them in a folder named "ringtones" or use an app that does it for you. I don't understand the reasoning behind that decision, but I'm not a ringtone junkie so I have my standard set of custom tones, leave them in the folder and don't think any more about it.

If I were to postulate, I would say that the idea is to leave the opportunity for a developer to write an app to modify custom features, rather than have it built into the OS.

If you go to settings - sounds - ringtone, there are options that come up. It will be different on each device depending on apps installed.
My options are android system, es file explorer, go sms pro, and zedge.
Zedge will only choose songs in zedge ringtones, android system will only choose those in ringtones, but es file explorer and go sms will choose from any directory on the device.

You only have to have songs in the ringtone folder if you want that song to show up under android system.