I understand that people like different kinds of tones for their SMS alerts. But the most recent batch of 17 new alerts (see the IOS announcement) are all obnoxious. That is, every one of them goes on for a good 3-8 seconds and they’re all pretty musical. I guess this must fit what the public wants. But it isn’t what I want. I would really love to just have a simple beep, or something low-key and discreet. The existing “glass” (which is just a ‘ding ding’ lasting about 2 seconds) is what I use for this.
I’m not surprised that they didn’t release 17 simple, discreet tones. I’m surprised they didn’t release 1. Just 1 out of 17 seems reasonable. Or 1 out of 18. Yes, I could jailbreak the phone and put my own tones in and all that. But I want to play by the rules.
To be fair, I think AirPlay and AirPrint are awesome ideas. I can’t wait to try them. But the message tones are completely unimportant.