One of the really interesting things about technology is watching the unexpected side-industries which crop up.  You never know what is going to catch on and become the next big thing, but it is fun to watch and predict.  One of these side industries that I really never saw coming is ringtones.  I can remember when ringtones were preprogrammed on your phone, and you were lucky to have half a dozen annoying chimes to choose from.  Then, things shifted a bit, allowing you to edit mp3 music clips and set them as ringtones on your phone.  The big jump came, however, when mp3 quality audio clips started to be recorded and even sold specifically as ringtones (buy the song and get the ringtone for free).  Since then, several apps have cropped up  to help manage these ringtones on your phone.  One such app is Ringo Pro, and the folks at Electric Pocket were kind enough to send over a sample for me to review on my HTC Hero (Android) device.

What I really liked about Ringo Pro is the extremely simple interface, which you can see above.  These ringtone managers can get extremely complex, but Ringo Pro makes this clean and simple.  The main screen consists of two tabs: default and contacts.  In the default tab, you can change your default ringtone and SMS tone.  These are the tones which you will hear for any caller unless you specifically assign that contact a different ringtone.

To assign a ringtone to a specific contact, just select the contacts tab, and then scroll through your list of contacts until you find the one you wish to assign.  Like I said, this is a really easy app to use.

To assign a ringtone or SMS tone, just use the appropriate menu option to open the list of available tones.  From here, you can scroll through any of the music or audio files on your device.  The cool thing here is that anything in your mp3 music collection is going to be compatible with Ringo Pro, and can be selected as a ringtone. 

From here, you can also choose to take a preview listen of any ringtone before selecting.  This is a nice option, because there is nothing worse than finding out how annoying your ringtone can be only after your phone rings. 

The app also allows you to add some advanced controls, including vibration and LED blinking.  You will find all of these settings under the advanced alert styles button.   Or you can choose to silence your phone directly from the main screen.  It would be nice if this phone silencer could be added as a standalone widget, though, so I could simply silence my phone with a single tap, instead of opening the app just to find the silence button.

In addition to managing your ringtones, though, Ringo Pro will also allow you to add ringtones to your phone.  Just select Get Ringtones to download exclusive (and free) Ringtones from Ringo Pro.  I thought this was a fantastic feature, as it could save some time (making your own ringtone clips) and money.  So, I was disappointed to find only a handful of ringtones available for download.  Hopefully Electric Pocket will work on enhancing this library soon.

I have to admit that I have never been terribly involved with custom ringtones, but this program makes adding ringtones so easy, that I feel like I should start adding custom ringtones for all of my contacts.  Pretty much the only thing I did not like about it was the price.  At 4.99 UK, Ringo Pro pretty expensive, especially considering the number of free rington managers in the Android Market.  Notwithstanding the price, though, I loved using this app and its clean and easy interface.  Now, I wonder what ringtone I should use for my wife…

Ringo Pro was developed by Electric Pocket, and is available from the Android Market for 4.99 UK.