A profanity-laden tirade against the new iOS 4.2 text alert sounds Posted by Dr. Macenstein on Monday, November 22, 2010 · 30 Comments

HOLY FUCK! Having just downloaded the iOS 4.2 GM, I am only now discovering what all you developers have known for some time – that the new text alert tones Apple has added with this build are so fucking bad, they don’t even rate as shit. I have long complained about Apple’s pathetic assortment of Text Alerts, citing it as one of the increasingly hard to find excuses for jailbreaking my iPhone. With each new iPhone software update came the hope of a new set of text tones, ones that were not only actually loud enough to actually be heard, but could actually be used in an office without sounding like I was watching a fucking Looney Tunes cartoon. I have written to Apple at least half a dozen times, and Steve Jobs twice about this. I finally gave up, made my own Text Tones, jailbroke the iPhone, and then patiently waited for the next iPhone update to raise and crush my hopes.

iOS 4.2 – A New Hope

But wait, what’s this? An iPhone update with nearly THREE TIMES as many new Text Tones as before! Suddenly, we’ve got 17 brand new MMS Alerts to choose from, each of which is likely to be a giant leap forward over their predecessors.



Well, even after the 4.2 update, it’s still a toss up between Tri-Tone and None.

Well, if you’ve updated to iOS 4.2, you know the sad truth. Not only are these new tones NOT a step up from the last batch, they are so fucking comical that I doubt SpongeBob would use them on his phone. Faithful Macenstein reader Michael Quinn put it best when he asked “Why do the new iOS 4.2 Text Tones all sound like they were ripped out of Fantasia?” I’ll tell you why. Because Steve Jobs owns the Fantasia library now, and he got a good deal. But while the first batch were bad, this second batch is bad AND ponderously long. In the first round of 6 tones, not one was more than a second long. With these new 17, I doubt there is one UNDER 3 seconds, and some seem to run as long as 45 minutes. Some of these are longer than the Apple ringtones, and the idea that anyone would want to hear one of these opuses every time they get a text is insulting. I defy you to tell me which of these new tones you’ll be switching to.

By giving us so many horrible text tones, Apple is in effect giving us the finger, saying “Oh, you want more choices? Here you go, douche bags!” Why else would they separate them out from the original set if not to show us how much they love their original sounds, and how angry they are at us asking for more? The iPhone has made great strides in the business world of late, but these Text Alert sounds transport the iPhone to an elementary school playground with each new message received.

So, now that Apple has proven that it doesn’t understand the point of a text alert, can they PLEASE allow us to add our own? The answer of course is “No”, but the logic is unfathomable. Surely we could not do a worse job.

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