Last week, we released MakeiPhoneRingtone 1.3, after iTunes 7.5 and iPhone OS 1.1.2 again made it possible to use custom ringtones on your iPhone. After a full week, the magic continues, and today, we've got a minor MakeiPhoneRingtone update. With version 1.3.1, only songs 40 seconds or shorter will be accepted, to match what the iPhone will take.

Click to download MakeiPhoneRingtone

As before, drop any AAC file on MakeiPhoneRingtone and it will be processed and passed off to iTunes, where it will be handled as a Ringtone. The file will show up in iTunes' Ringtone sub-library as well as the Ringtones tab in the iPhone section, where you can sync it to your iPhone. Once it's on your iPhone, you can use the file as a global ringtone, per-contact ringtone, or even an alarm clock sound.

Quick Notes:

• iTunes 7.5 and iPhone OS 1.1.2 are required.

• Files must be AAC audio files, ending with .m4a, .m4r, .mp4, or .aac.

• Files must be 40 seconds or shorter.

• You can use our lossless editor Fission to create ringtones. Edit almost any audio format in Fission and convert to AAC as needed.

• As noted previously, custom ringtones are undocumented and unsupported by Apple, and they may change or break with future updates, as they have in the past.

Today, we've got a new version of Audio Hijack Pro available for all users. This update fixes several bugs on Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) as well as AAC recording issues caused by QuickTime 7.3 on Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger).

On Leopard, we're still working to finish the Instant Hijack functionality which enables the capture of audio from already-running applications. On Tiger, however, Audio Hijack Pro 2.8 Preview 2 is feature complete with plenty of updates and new features over 2.7.3.

We'll have an Audio Hijack Pro 2.8 final release, with Instant Hijack working on both Tiger and Leopard in the near future, but Preview 2 is now recommended for all users on OS X 10.4.0 through 10.5.1. Head over to the Audio Hijack Pro page to download it now.

Incredibly, with the iPhone OS 1.1.2 update, it is again possible to use non-iTunes Music Store files as ringtones. We've updated MakeiPhoneRingtone to work with iTunes 7.5 and iPhone OS 1.1.2. Be sure you're up to date, then grab MakeiPhoneRingtone to use custom ringtones with your iPhone.

Click to download MakeiPhoneRingtone

Drop any AAC file on MakeiPhoneRingtone and it will be processed and passed off to iTunes, where it will be handled as a Ringtone. The file will show up in iTunes' Ringtone sub-library as well as the Ringtones tab in the iPhone section, where you can sync it to your iPhone. Once it's on your iPhone, you can use the file as a global ringtone, per-contact ringtone, or even an alarm clock sound.

We recommend our own audio editor Fission to help you create ringtones, as it can losslessly edit AAC files. You can also edit almost any audio format in Fission then convert to AAC. But regardless of how you create your ringtones, any AAC audio file 40 seconds or shorter¹ will work just fine with MakeiPhoneRingtone, so download it now!

Please Note: Custom ringtones are undocumented and unsupported by Apple, and they may change or break with future updates, as they have in the past. It's possible that the change to again allow custom ringtones is accidental and will be locked out rapidly, though we certainly hope this is not the case. Regardless, with iTunes 7.5 and iPhone OS 1.1.2, you can again use MakeiPhoneRingtone to get custom ringtones on your phone free of charge.

Footnotes:
1. Actually, ringtone files (currently) have a hard ceiling of exactly 40.04 seconds. MakeiPhoneRingtone will pass off files of any length, but the Ringtones tab in the iPhone area of iTunes won't show files longer than 40.04 seconds. I used Fission to determine exact file lengths. 40.04 works, and 40.05 doesn't. Bizarre, but true. ↩

Per Paul's previous promise (for the purposes of alliteration, I'll briefly become an illeist), we now have free Exhibit Hall Passes for Macworld San Francisco 2008! The Exhibit Hall is open January 15th through the 18th, and we'll be in booth #2738, along with a special guest. You'll have to stop by to see just who it is!

To get your free Exhibit Hall pass, sign up at macworldexpo.com before January 14th with Priority Code 08-G-PC260 (see below). On January 14th and beyond, this code will let you register for $25, but why wait? Register now, and we'll see you there!

Update: It looks like the code provided to us by Macworld was incorrect! Using Priority Code 08-G-PC256, the first 100 registrants will receive free Exhibit Hall passes from Rogue Amoeba. After that, the cost is just $10 for the Exhibit Hall. Act fast!