Wednesday, April 30, 2008 -- 7:30 p.m. -- at my desk

You know the ringtone ... the simple one that's at the end of just about every iPhone commercial? It's nowhere to be found, it seems, and you can't even buy it on iTunes.

But ... if you have a Mac and iLife 08, you have it. You'll find it at this path: /Library/Audio/Apple Loops/Apple/iLife Sound Effects/Work - Home/Cell Phone Ringing.aif

From there's it's actually pretty simple to get it into GarageBand (Mac only, again, sorry)

Thanks for calling.

Here's what you need to do it:
*GarageBand 4.1.1 or later
*iTunes 7.5 or later
*iPhone with software version 1.1.2 or later

To create a custom ringtone
1. Set up a cycle region that covers the area you wish to use in the GarageBand song. Note: This area must be 40 seconds or less in length. A cycle region means you select the arrow icon next to the play icon, and that indicates a repeated loop. Once you select the region, you will be presented with a yellow bar that you can manipulate in length. It is this bar that contains your 40 seconds of ringtone.

2. Once the cycle area has been set, choose Share > Send Ringtone to iTunes. It takes about 5 seconds to move to iTunes, and iTunes automatically comes up to show you its done. Then you sync and voila! That's it. It's easy and the way ringtones should have been since the beginning.

Troubleshooting
*If there are any issues creating or syncing ringtones, here are some suggestions:
*If the Share -- Send Ringtone to iTunes menu item in GarageBand is dimmed, make sure that you have iTunes 7.5 or later. If you have an earlier version, use Software Update to get the latest version.
*If you see an error message that indicates your ringtone was not copied when you synced your iPhone, make sure that the iPhone has software version 1.1.2 or later.

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Thanks for the heads-up on this one, it worked perfectly. I have never been one who puts heavy metal screamer rock on my phone as a ringtone, so this will be great.

SCOTT'S REPLY: Glad to hear it, Glenn!!

this comment is not about the ringtone, but rather the picture of "john Appleseed" or whoever else is calling.

I sync to a pc, not a mac. Sometimes I wish I had a mac, but for this purpose I like the pc sync better:
When I have a photo associated with a contact, and that contact calls me, the entire iPhone screen fills up with that picture. To me, that is visually satisfying. However, when someone who syncs with a mac has a contact call them, only a tiny thumbnail photo appears in the corner.
Don't you mac users want a full picture?

SCOTT'S REPLY: Well, Al, we can get the full picture. By default, it seems, a sync from the address book gives you the small photo but editing it changes that to the big one. Which is exactly what I do. In fact, I get a little annoyed when I only have a small photo. Another way around that is to take a photo of the contact with your iPhone and just put it in on the spot. But you are right ... it's a few extra steps sometimes.

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