tones

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- Ever wondered how Apple employees travel around the Cupertino campus?

- Taking New York's upcoming Citi Bike Share plan for a test ride.

- Why don't cell phones have a dial tone?

- Forget following teens, your new favorite Tweeter is 94 years old.

- Speaking of old people, here's Jeff's dear, old granny with a 404 sticker on her walker.

- Speaking of speaking of old people, here's a soul-cuddling video of an older landlady lip-syncing her favorite song from the 1930s.… Read more

Customizing alerts on your iOS device is a great way to quickly personalize your device. With the release of iOS 5 last fall, Apple finally added the ability for users to change the default alert tones for services such as SMS and e-mails. This meant users could then purchase tones directly from Apple, create their own, or use an app to acquire some new tones.

One such app, SMS Ringtones Free (download link), is very easy to use and has a fun list of tones available for its users to download.

While there isn't a way to save the … Read more

A little-known feature in iOS 5 is the new option to create free, custom ringtones and text message alert tones.

The iTunes store is flooding with tones for $0.99 to $1.29, prices that are high enough to make you stick with the iPhone's default tones. But now, with a few easy steps, you can make unique tones that set your phone apart from the many others who share the same standard tones.

Watch the video to learn how:

"Was that you or me?"

I can't tell you how many times a perfectly mediocre episode of "NCIS L.A." or another procedural crime drama my wife forces me to watch is interrupted by the ding of an incoming e-mail on one of our iPhones. If we had different tones, then she could continue watching the NCIS team's riveting investigation while I checked my phone, or she could pause the show and check her phone. So that I would not interrupt Chris O'Donnell, L.L. Cool J, and the rest of the gang, … Read more

Halftone turns your photographs into captioned comics with a distinctive worn-paper style. Start by snapping a new photo with your iPhone camera or by selecting an image from your photo library. From there, you can use the buttons on the bottom of the interface to select from 27 different paper styles to give your final product that heavily dogeared comic look. You also can add customizable speech balloons and choose from a few different layouts, but we think there should be more layout options--especially multipane formats. For a little more excitement, you can pick from 24 exclamation balloons (Arrrgh! BLAM!) … Read more

Knowing who sent you a text message before even looking at your phone is extremely convenient, especially if you are the type who receives many SMS messages daily. One way to know who is on the other end of that SMS you just received, is to customize the text alert, based on a contact, on your iPhone. It is a simple process to set up, but one that is easy to miss if you aren't paying attention.

While this capability has been around for those in the jailbreak community from early on, it's a fairly new feature having been introduced in iOS 4.2. 

… Read more

We don't manufacture TVs, cameras, or iPods, but American products still dominate the world market for upscale audio. Take Zu Audio. Founded at the beginning of the century, it's based in Ogden, Utah, and its speakers are sold all over the world. I recently wrote about the company's Soul Superfly speaker for Tone Audio Magazine, and you can read the complete review there.

One of the things that first attracted me to Zu was that its design methodology is more musical and less measurement-oriented than most, which is not to say Zu's engineering is completely seat-of-the-pants, just that the end result is a sound that is, well, different from what I was used to.

I've used a number of Zu speakers in my system over the years, so I wasn't surprised to hear that the Soul Superfly ($3,000 a pair) sounded like no other box speaker. The speaker makes a strong statement, very in-your-face, very rock and roll, and I love it.

Since all Zu speakers feature a 10.3-inch full-range driver that covers bass, midrange, and well up into the treble, Zu speakers don't have crossover networks, so your amplifier directly plays the driver without an inductor, capacitor, or resistor in-line. That direct-coupled strategy yields all sorts of sonic dividends. The Soul Superfly's immediacy and vivid clarity are matched by few box speakers in its price class.

The Soul Superfly's 1-inch dome tweeter is mounted in a beautifully machined aluminum flared horn. It comes in at a very high frequency, 10kHz; while most tweeters on two- or three-way designs are crossed over much lower, typically between 1.2kHz and 4kHz. Zu's approach makes for a dramatic difference in the way the speaker puts sound in the room. Oh, boy, does it ever!… Read more

Where are the under-30 audiophiles? I don't know a single one here in New York City. Sure, high-end audio gear can be expensive, but that's no excuse. A pair of Audioengine 2 speakers ($199) and an iPod can sound pretty sweet. Maybe an older relative would be happy to give you a hi-fi or speakers they don't use anymore. There's no shortage of dirt-cheap, decent-sounding gear at yard sales, and there are lots of awesome deals on used hi-fi classics at Audiogon. So high prices can't be the only reason why young people aren't … Read more

You might think turntables have an easy job: just spin the platter supporting the record. Hold on, spinning at exactly thirty-three and a third revolutions per minute, without the slightest variance and flutter is a surprisingly difficult task to pull off.

Remember, too that the phono cartridge's stylus tracing the LP's groove is a remarkably sensitive device; it "reads" groove wiggles that can be smaller than a wavelength of light. But the stylus tracing the groove can't distinguish between groove wiggles and other vibrations, such as those from the turntable's extraneous motor noise, or the sound coming out of the speakers in the room with the turntable. The bearing the platter rests upon, and the tonearm's bearings also make noise, which are also picked up by the stylus.

A perfect turntable's platter would spin at the exact right speed; its motor and bearings would produce absolutely no noise, and the turntable/platter system would be completely isolated from its environment. No such turntable exists, but high-end turntables get a lot closer to that ideal than budget contenders.

That's why the very best turntables seem quite a bit quieter than lesser turntables; they produce less rumble and groove noise, and clicks and pops seem less intrusive. Cheap, poorly designed turntables exacerbate groove noise and tend to sound screechy. Most budget 'tables have limited bass power and poor bass definition. … Read more