Review: Ringer 2

Ringer is all about making the process of creating a ringtone effortless. You can load any QuickTime-compatible file (including videos), and the app helpfully places your iTunes media in its sidebar. This is rapidly filtered, Spotlight-style, so you can easily access a particular song or snippet of audio saved from another app just by typing a couple of words.

Once you’ve selected something to use as the basis for your ringtone, it’s loaded into the main editing area. You can then crop it to suit, add fades at the start and end, and determine the gap between “rings.” Hit Create and the edit is fired over to iTunes, ready to sync with your device.

If that all sounds easy, that’s because it is, although a couple of snags stop Ringer from getting top marks. First, there’s no picture when working with video clips. Second, clean loops can be tricky to gauge because the zoom level doesn’t go quite far enough, and Ringer’s preview isn’t seamless. But for four bucks, this is otherwise a great app for turning your existing media into ringtones for your phone. And, although iTunes integration is the default, it’s possible to save files to the Finder in M4R, M4A, AAC, and WAV. 

The bottom line. Ringer is a simple means of creating ringtones that’s usable, polished, and has just enough editing capabilities.