You might remember my blog post a while back on how I felt that Apple was missing the point about iPhone Ringtones (Apple and iPhone ringtones. ARGGGH!). While I had found a solution in Ambrosia Software’s wonderful iToner product, it was still a work around to something that shouldn’t be that hard. Well it would seem that Apple has relinquished their death grip on this aspect of the iPhone by their recent release of GarageBand 4.1.1. The New GarageBand update (which is part of iLife ’08) now has a menu option to "Send Ringtone to iTunes".
This is something that I felt should have been a part of GarageBand from the beginning. It’s a natural fit and allows people that want to create a ringtone out of something other than a song (non DRM protected songs work too) the ability to do so. I used this feature to convert my 5 or so custom ringtones into "legitimate" ringtones that show up right in the Ringtones area of iTunes and sync beautifully to the iPhone without the need for 3rd party apps.
GarageBand is a Mac only app. So Windows users will still need to rely on 3rd party apps or hacks to get ringtones onto the iPhone (check out iPhoneRingtoneMaker.com). However, it appears that at least Apple is no longer trying to stop this harmless activity which is good for us all.