Evolution of ringtones started back in 2011 in Finland. At the time Finland was a country where every teenager could be seen typing messages on the little boxes called phone. At first, it was more about calling and messaging. At that time the developers thought of making the cell phones more interesting, and that’s when the idea of ringtones came into existence. The credit to Ring Tones is given to Vesa Matti Paananen, and now we have a whole industry of smart phones with soul soothing ringtones.
Nokia – the beginner
While financing remained an issue of the time and the cell phone providers were fighting their way into stock market, one of the major cellular service providers of the time – NOKIA focused on the customers’ expectations. A survey was conducted on the cell phone users which mostly comprised of college students. 20% of the users at that time were college students. As a result of the survey, it was found that most of the girls would like to add a bit of personal touch to their phone. The company realised the need for customization, and that is how ring tones came into existence.
The competition thrown by Japan and Motorola
Even Japan became the part of the race, and until the end of 2003, it had a number of royalty claims on the ringtone available at the time.
A boost was given to the existence of ring tones when Motorola and MTV came together to launch music embedding facilities. A wireless menu interface was provided to either directly follow the embedded links or download it from the MTV.
In the series of the Motorola phone personalisation campaign came the wallpaper and screen saver. The cell phone personalization fever caught over the entire world, giving us a better way to curate those beautiful sounds known as ringtones.
The current ringtone industry
The start of smartphones gave a push to the ring tone market and right now it’s a multi billion market. Most of the Smartphone makers are trying to stay ahead of their competitors by providing thrilling ringtones to users worldwide. Apple’s iPhone has made it first on the list by being one of the best ring tone providers, and it is then followed by Samsung, Microsoft, and other major Smartphone providers.
Provided that the user these days are very strict about what they want, converting MP3 into ringtones became a trend. Users like to experiment with their choice of music hence preferring online tools like iTunes, Ringdroid, and MP3 ringtone maker to convert their favourite songs into ringtones. While these three are just the beginning of the array, there are a whole lot of tools that allows you to create your own ringtone.
It is said that innovation and creativity walk side by side and mobile ringtones are the live examples for the same. Ringtones are now available to suit all sorts of theme, moods, and cultures. The technology is still rising, and we are expecting a lot of interesting applications ahead.