So as I mentioned before, I got an iPhone. When I first got it, a very good person who will remain nameless activated it for me. I’m not about to sign another contract with the devil just so I can have a nice phone. All was grand until I decided I wanted some different ringtones. Since Jesus Jobs had just given his announcement about ringtones that you have to pay for twice, I decided I’d have to pony up and make my own. Yes, I know everyone is doing it, but since I haven’t written a blog post in a while, you get to read about my experience. Lucky you!

Moving on, when I got my iPhone it hadn’t been updated (despite coming from Apple well after the 2 updates had been released). I didn’t think it would be a huge problem since Apple claimed those updates only contained bug fixes (lies). Attempting to follow the instructions online for adding ones own ringtones failed. You see, one of those updates (I assume 1.0.2) twiddled a bit for ringtones. So poor me with my vanilla phone couldn’t get the Ringtones tab to show up in iTunes to save my life. I got really frustrated and decided I was going to install 1.0.2 which I’d been shying away from. So yesterday, I went for it.

Oh Joy, I got the dreaded full download which meant Apple was up to my shenanigans and made restore the entire iPhone. Following that, I had to re-activate it. I used iNdependence to do this which was frustrating for a minute because I failed to read the instructions. You know you ignore readme’s too so stop judging me. Anyhow, I jailbreaked then activated my iPhone in about a half hour (with constant interruptions) and lo and behold, the Ringtones tab showed up in iTunes.

Getting the ringtones I wanted onto my phone was not such a small deal. Here’s a step by step of how I did it, I’m sure there is an easier way but since you’re reading my blog, you get my way.

1. Rip CD since music I wanted to use is not available for download
2. Import AAC files for songs I wanted into Audacity 1.3.3. Mind you Audacity 1.3.3 is beta software but is the only version that can handle AAC encoding. Yes I know I could have ripped into mp3 format, but I didn’t, get over it.
3. Snip songs until they are a suitable length and style for ringtones. I determined that my phone rings for 30 seconds before going to voicemail so obvs, I made 30 second clips (does fair use apply to ringtones?).
4. Export the songs to mp3 format and import into iTunes.
5. Convert the songs to AAC in iTunes (Right click on the song in the iTunes Library, choose “Convert selection to AAC”)
6. Find the converted songs in the Finder (Right click, choose “Show in Finder”)
7. Move the songs from their current location to the iTunes Ringtones folder (iTunes > iTunes Music > Ringtones)
8. Change the extension on the songs from .m4a to .m4r
9. Open the .m4r files so they show up in iTunes under Ringtones
10. Change the extensions of the .m4r files back to .m4a so iTunes doesn’t complain when you try to Sync your Ringtones to your iPhone.

So thats how I did the ringtones thing. I tried the installer.app situation but it failed miserably and almost made me think I bricked my iPhone. Maybe I’ll get the cohones to try it again later.

As far as general usage of the phone goes, there are some obvious problems that I’m surprised Cupertino didn’t get fixed before launch. Here are my OMGWTF’s in no particular order:

1. Lack of a decent contact manager seems like a major WTF. I find it annoying to have to go through the Phone app just to change a contact’s information. That you can’t search your contacts would be a non-starter for me if I had more than a few friends. I’m sure the finger scrolling would get old if I had thousands of contacts.
2. Support for syncing to more than one computer without wiping the current library of your device. Dear Apple, it’s now 2007 and people tend to have more than one computer they use regularly. Please remove heads from asses and realize how inconvenient it may be for say, college student going home for a break who’d like to add songs to her device from parents computer. Perhaps person who has computer at work and at home that they’d like their iPhone to sync to? Not a 2 way sync, mind, just one way, since Piracy is Bad.
3. Support for individually adding a song to the iPhone. Geezus Apple. This one is a royal screw up that I really don’t understand the reason for. I could drag and drop songs to my iPod before, exactly why must I sync only a playlist or my whole library now? Does somebody, anybody, know the reason for this silly change? More importantly, is the direction the entire iPod line will be taking?
4. Lack of customization options is a little piss poor. Here are the icons I could do without on the home screen: Calendar, Calculator, Stocks, Maps, Weather, Notes, and Clock. Why can’t I hide them? Also what is the point of using wallpaper if you can’t see it when you use your phone?
5. Finally, lack of games. What is one supposed to do while they are taking an hour long train ride? Make calculations? Write notes? How hard would it have been to give us BrickBreaker or some other time killer?

Those are my thoughts on the iPhone. Despite my gripes, I still love this phone. Hopefully Apple will make it better soon.