If you’ve ever found yourself diving for your phone to silence an embarrassingly juvenile ringtone (mine is a Guns N’ Roses song, but I don’t embarrass easily), iRingPro can keep you from being “that guy.” Sure, you could just use one of the iPhone’s 25 packed-in ringtones, but how generic is that? iRingPro’s Origin, Tek, and Zen collections offer ringtones of sophisticated taste and style. But they’re more than just nifty sounds--they’re thoughtfully designed for the needs of the iPhone user, who, let’s face it, is used to a top-notch experience all around.
Once you sync the ringtones to your iPhone, just select them in Settings > Sounds or assign them to individual contacts.
Each ringtone collection contains one-step and three-step ringtones, and each of those ringtones also comes in long and short versions. But “long” and “short” don’t refer to the musical part of the ringtone, which remains the same. The difference is the amount of silence included. One-step ringtones have a few seconds of silence on the end for a pause before the tone repeats. And three-step ringtones insert silence between each step; plus, the steps sound different so you get an audible clue for how long your phone has been ringing.
If that’s not enough, iRingPro also labels the ringtones as AG or MG, standing for “active grade” and “meeting grade.” The active-grade ringtones are stronger and should be audible in normal to loud situations. The meeting-grade ringtones are lower-pitched and more subtle, good for more decorous situations like the office. It’s a nice touch.
The ringtones are labeled in iTunes as AG or MG, short or long, and single-tone or three-tone.
The Origin collection has a primal feeling--the developers say these tones were inspired by the origins of music. So you’ll hear drums, mallet instruments, ancient-sounding string instruments, and other percussive sounds. My favorites were the three-tone Legend and the strong single-tone Mallet. Origin includes 12 single tones, 10 three-part tones, plus long versions of all of those, for a total of 44 files.
The Zen collection is actually labeled Zen 2 because it’s been expanded from its original incarnation, and owners of the earlier version received the new Zen 2 ringtones as a free upgrade. The calm, peaceful tones evoke sparkling cleanliness, and many are named after Japanese train lines. They’re almost shiny-sounding, but I did find several of the active-grade tones too high-pitched for my taste. You get 27 one-step ringtones in long and short versions, for 54 files total--no three-step ringtones here.
Note: Ringtones don't actually come in a box.
The Tek collection is even shinier than Zen, and it makes an iPhone sound as futuristic as it looks. Sci-fi fans will swear they’ve heard some of these sounds emitted by gadgets in Star Trek. The collection includes three multistep ringtones and 28 single tones, plus long versions, for 62 files total.
Each collection has 20-plus ringtones. Long and short versions let you decide how much silence goes between each ring.
Collection pricing only; individual ringtones aren't for sale. Zen collection doesn't have three step ringtones.
