Guide for adding custom ringtones and tweaks to your iPhone

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Very early this morning a user named Mubs posted a guide in the forums outlining the steps involved in putting a custom ringer on your iPhone. Before I go any further, I would like to point out that the guide is fairly geeky despite Mubs' best efforts to package all the needed files into one place. Full guide and our results after the jump!

I was pretty disappointed when I got my iPhone home and found that it had no disk mode. Not only did this mean I couldn't use it as a convenient flash drive, I couldn't make any customizations to it either. Luckily for everyone lacking in super nerd skills, a team of hackers have been working around the clock to get the iPhone unlocked. While the phone still remains secure, they've discovered a very clever way to gain access to the phone's OS partition enabling a host of abilities. Obviously the most pertinent request for iPhone outside of SIM unlocking is the ability to use custom ringtones.

Up to this point the iPhone hacks has been left up to the geeks, but we now have a pretty usable guide for uploading new ringtones courtesy of one of our forum users "Mubs".

I would like to mention that I have followed this guide and it worked perfectly for me. Not only was I able to get the CTU ringer Mubs provided into my iPhone, I also managed to get a Beatles song uploaded as well. Presumably any iPhone compatible audio file should work. He also provided some tweaked AT&T carrier images which worked for me as well. Some (poor quality) images to wet your appetite before the guide:



He has granted us permission to post his guide here, so without further ado, here it is!

I've compiled a guide for anyone that wants to have a custom ringtone on their iPhone. This can also be used as a base for adding other modifications to your iPhone. I've also assembled a nice little package with everything you need to follow my guide. At the moment, this version of jailbreak only works on intel Mac's. The universal one I found didn't work correctly so I'll let you know when I find a universal version.

I have to start off by saying that all the hard work was not done by myself. It was done mostly by "geohot", "nightwatch" and "ziel", as well as the rest of the guys in #iphone-dev. Thanks guys, you rock!

Although highly unlikely, messing with your phone this way has the potential to screw things up beyond repair. If you do feel you have messed something up, in most cases a simple restore will do the job. I am not responsible if you brick your iPhone.

It's a good idea to make sure you have a backup of the stuff on your iPhone before starting this procedure.

Keep iTunes closed throughout this guide as it may complicate things. If it opens, pause to close it, then continue.

Step 1: Download the magical package of goodies and unzip them to your desktop. I'll be assuming you've done this throughout the guide.

Step 2: After you've unzipped your goodies, pop open the Terminal located in the Applications > Utilities folder.

Step 3: In the terminal, type the following -

cd ~/Desktop/iPhone\ goodies/tools/

Hit return, then type

./jailbreak

Step 4: Restart your iPhone into soft recovery mode by pressing and holding the Sleep/Wake button and Home button at the same time. Keep these two buttons held until you see a yellow exclamation mark with the words "Please Connect to iTunes" at which point you can let go. You will see a spinning gear shortly after while the iPhone boots. When it's done, it will restart.

You are now out of jail, lets do something fun! How about setting up the CTU ringtone?

Step 5: In the same terminal window which is currently in the "tools" directory from before, type the following -

./iphoneinterface

Hit return. You should now see the following:

Waiting for phone... established.
iPhone state: Activated
type "help" for help
iPhone:/#

Step 6: Time to upload your CTU ringtone. The following is all case sensitive so I recommend copying and pasting. At the prompt, type -

cd Library/Ringtones

Hit return, then type -

putfile CTU.mp3

Hit return again. Type

quit

and press return. You should now have the CTU ringtone on your iPhone. You can choose the ringtone from the Ringtone preference pane in Settings.

But wait a tick, iTunes doesn't understand what's gone on with your iPhone. What do you do? It's time to put yourself back into jail so you can continue using your iPhone normally. Don't worry, your sweet new ringtone will still be there.

Step 7: Assuming that you've still got the magical folder unzipped on your desktop, type the following into a terminal window -

cd ~/Desktop/iPhone\ goodies/tools/

Press return

Step 8: Type the following -

./iphoneinterface

Hit return. You should now see the following:

Waiting for phone... established.
iPhone state: Activated
type "help" for help
iPhone:/#

Step 9: At the prompt, type -

cd System/Library/Lockdown

Hit return, then type -

rmdir Services.plist

and press return.

Step 10: Right now you're pretty naked as you've just removed the Services.plist from your iPhone. Don't worry, we have another in the tools folder ready to go.

To upload the new copy, type -

putfile Services.plist

press return and type -

quit

hit return once more and you're done!

Step 11: Changes will not take effect until you restart your iPhone. To do so, hold the Sleep/Wake button and Home button at the same time until the screen goes black. Now press and hold the Sleep/Wake button until you see the Apple logo and let go. Your iPhone should now be in correct working order able to be synced. The CTU ringtone should still be available.

There you have it! I've also included some tweaked AT&T logos for your tweaking pleasure. If you're feeling adventurous, they go into the System/Library/CoreServices/SpringBoard.app/ directory on your iPhone.

Note: Everything you want to upload to the phone must be located in the "tools" directory.

Have fun!

If you do anything crazy or creative with your iPhone using the info here, tell us about it!


Hey, if anyone else is interested you can change all the sounds the phone makes by replacing anything in the /System/Library/Audio/UISounds directory. Have fun!

Help

after i did this, i tried to connect to itunes and received this error... iTunes could not connect to the iphone because an unknown error (0xE8000022).


WHAT DO I DO?

Quote:
Originally Posted by louis View Post
after i did this, i tried to connect to itunes and received this error... iTunes could not connect to the iphone because an unknown error (0xE8000022).


WHAT DO I DO?
Could you go further in depth as to what else is happening? Does the iPhone work by itself and did you make sure to follow the instructions of putting the Services.plist back?

help

ya everything is working fine.... i just cannot connect to itunes. my ringtones work, and everything works, i get it to connect with itunes. i tried to go back and install the service but it wouldnt let me. im going to try all over again so hopefully it will work.

help

now when i try to redo everything i recieve this message when trying to do ./jailbreak

Looking for iPhone...
Sending Files...
Problem starting AFC: -402653150

Sorry, apparently things just didn't work out.
Look on the bright side, if jail was that good for Paris maybe you should give it a second chance.

Quote:
Originally Posted by louis View Post
now when i try to redo everything i recieve this message when trying to do ./jailbreak

Looking for iPhone...
Sending Files...
Problem starting AFC: -402653150

Sorry, apparently things just didn't work out.
Look on the bright side, if jail was that good for Paris maybe you should give it a second chance.
I would say something probably went wrong with getting back into jail. Try following the instructions from Step 7 onward. If you get an error during the first part of Step 9, you're likely back into jail and that's not your problem.

The AFC thing usually means that there's a communications problem. Try pulling the iPhone from it's dock, restarting by following Step 11 and see if iTunes recognizes it correctly. If you still have a problem, you should restore it.

To restore your iPhone, follow only Step 4 and open iTunes. It should mention an iPhone being in recovery mode at which point allow it to recover.

Hope this helps!

Quote:
Originally Posted by louis View Post
now when i try to redo everything i recieve this message when trying to do ./jailbreak

Looking for iPhone...
Sending Files...
Problem starting AFC: -402653150

Sorry, apparently things just didn't work out.
Look on the bright side, if jail was that good for Paris maybe you should give it a second chance.
is this for mac or pc?

Mac.

i figured everthing out. thanks for all your help. i just needed to restore my ipod (by holding sleep/home) for 25 seconds, THEN connect to the computer and start itunes. After that i just went through the same process and everything worked out.

Ringtones

GREAT TOOL!!!!!!!!!!!! Followed the directions and works great. Although I think you have your forward\back slashes confused... cd~/desktop/iphone\ goodies/tools/ should be just the following: cd desktop/iPhone/goodies/tools. I also had to rename the folder on the desktop to reflect the commands after zipping.


Anyway...Thanks for the tip....

Changing other sounds

Can anyone go into more detail about changed the other sounds (sms,mail,etc) on the iphone?

thanks

SWEEEEET...Thanks for a great tool!!!! Worked perfectly!!!! The other "24" geeks in my office are going to be SOOOOOO jealous...I love it!!!!!!!

Quote:
Originally Posted by louis View Post
Mac.

i figured everthing out. thanks for all your help. i just needed to restore my ipod (by holding sleep/home) for 25 seconds, THEN connect to the computer and start itunes. After that i just went through the same process and everything worked out.
Glad everything worked out for you!

Quote:
Originally Posted by louis View Post
Can anyone go into more detail about changed the other sounds (sms,mail,etc) on the iphone?

thanks
The sounds associated with most if not all other notifications are located in the /System/Library/Audio/UISounds directory. After you've gone through steps 1-5 to gain access to iPhone's files, step 6 tells exactly what you should do to get anything else into the phone.

Instead of cd Library/Ringtones, type cd /System/Library/Audio/UISounds. To get a listing of all the sounds there, type ls and hit return. To replace any of those files, type rmdir followed by the sound name. That removes the sound to make room for the one you want. Note that file name and replace it with the one you want by using the putfile command.

That answer it for you?

This is a great guide. I am using a custom ringtones as we speak and it works excellently!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mubs View Post
The sounds associated with most if not all other notifications are located in the /System/Library/Audio/UISounds directory. After you've gone through steps 1-5 to gain access to iPhone's files, step 6 tells exactly what you should do to get anything else into the phone.

Instead of cd Library/Ringtones, type cd /System/Library/Audio/UISounds. To get a listing of all the sounds there, type ls and hit return. To replace any of those files, type rmdir followed by the sound name. That removes the sound to make room for the one you want. Note that file name and replace it with the one you want by using the putfile command.

That answer it for you?
not exactly...
where do i find the /System/Library/Audio/UISounds?? Also, do i need to convert the new sounds to .m4a and put them in that folder?

ok i figured out how to access that file. now my question is where do i put the sounds i want for texts, mail, etc. what format do they have to be in and where will they show up on my phone. thanks again. sorry im not too smart at this stuff

I deleted the sms_received.cif and replaced it with my own .m4a but not i have no sound when i receive and sms. how do i change what sms sound i get when i receive one?

Quote:
Originally Posted by louis View Post
I deleted the sms_received.cif and replaced it with my own .m4a but not i have no sound when i receive and sms. how do i change what sms sound i get when i receive one?
You know, I should have actually looked and tried doing this before I told anyone else to do it. Those UI sound files are actually in Core Audio Format (CAF) and so I'm not sure how to get those replaced. I'll be looking at different ways of replacing those files.

I'll likely end up doing one of two things. I'll either change which file the phone looks for or I'll figure out how to export an mp3 to caf.

In the meantime, if you need that file, I've uploaded it so you won't have to go without. Sorry!

sms-received.caf

I have a couple of questions.

1. Do we hit return after typing ./jailbreak before we soft reboot the iphone?

2. When I do not hit return at that point, then soft reboot the iphone, it seems to stay stuck on the yellow exclamation symbol. How long does the the iphone take to begin rebooting. I waited 3 to 4 minutes plus. Do i just need to wait it out a little longer??

Cheers.

don't forget to upload the new Services.plist

if you skip that last step, even though the iPhone appears to work properly, jailbait, iphone interface, and itunes itself cannot talk to iphone at all.

only solution is to do an itunes restore. (while plugged in, hold home/sleep down together until you get the yellow triagle. then use itunes to restore.)

sigh.

Freakin' out!

I get the message "Problem With AFCFileRefOpen: 12" when I get to the "putfile xxx.mp3" stage. Help!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Freakin' out! View Post
I get the message "Problem With AFCFileRefOpen: 12" when I get to the "putfile xxx.mp3" stage. Help!
ive used .m4a files for all my ringtones so try doing that and putting it in the tools folder

Quote:
Originally Posted by louis View Post
now when i try to redo everything i recieve this message when trying to do ./jailbreak

Looking for iPhone...
Sending Files...
Problem starting AFC: -402653150

Sorry, apparently things just didn't work out.
Look on the bright side, if jail was that good for Paris maybe you should give it a second chance.
^ i have the same problem, please help

Quote:
Originally Posted by Unregistered View Post
^ i have the same problem, please help

I got the same message as well. I restarted from step 1 again and the second time through it worked fine. Just redo the steps, they are very well detailed and you'll get it

Free cool iPhone Ringtones

I hope you think some of them are cool.

http://homepage.mac.com/usachris/FileSharing4.html

They are all in the proper format and 30 sec or less.

check out the vid I made: www.youtube.com/christophersalazar

Quote:
Originally Posted by Unregistered View Post
I have a couple of questions.

1. Do we hit return after typing ./jailbreak before we soft reboot the iphone?

2. When I do not hit return at that point, then soft reboot the iphone, it seems to stay stuck on the yellow exclamation symbol. How long does the the iphone take to begin rebooting. I waited 3 to 4 minutes plus. Do i just need to wait it out a little longer??

Cheers.
You can hit return before or after you reboot the phone, but I was implying that you did it before.

If it stays stuck on the yellow symbol, you should try again. Restart your phone, undock and redock. You may also have a bad copy of the file. Try downloading again if you can't get it working.

Most problems can be solved by undocking the phone, then redocking it. If that doesn't work, try restarting from step one. If that doesn't clear it up let me know.

As far as adding the custom sounds for new-mail.caf or sms-received.caf, you just have to convert your audio to .aiff (quicktime) and then rename it "new-mail.caf" so the phone will know to use that for new mail...or "sms-received.caf" for new text messages received. mp3's and m4a's won't work because the phone is specifically programmed to look for those .caf files (you can use the .aiff format, but change the name before you putfile).

YAY everyone!

Hey, great find Marcee. You rock! I've been looking for a way to change those

Thanks for the great instructions & thanks to the user who posted some ringtones!

A couple of questions:
-Any advice for making new ringtones (ie how do I turn them into short ringtones from m4a files?)
-Do I need to go through the entire process every time I want to add a new ringtone?

Thanks again!!

do you know how i can delete one of the songs ive added

Quote:
Thanks for the great instructions & thanks to the user who posted some ringtones!

A couple of questions:
-Any advice for making new ringtones (ie how do I turn them into short ringtones from m4a files?)
-Do I need to go through the entire process every time I want to add a new ringtone?

Thanks again!!
I'm on a mac, and I downloaded (and bought) a program called Fission. It's a really easy audio editing program. I edited my music down to under 30 seconds (and, in some cases, cut it up into the sections I wanted and then fused it back together) and saved it. Then I brought it into iTunes and under the "Advanced" menu, converted it to ACC (makes it an .m4a) and then I putfile to my heart's content. You should be able to follow all the instructions and then once you get to the putfile part, you can putfile blah.m4a (hit enter) and then putfile blahtwo.m4a (hit enter) - over and over til you've got 'em all put. Then quit and continue with the procedure.

-- Marcee
(PS Thanks Michael. I've been figuring all kinds of random things out lately. Funny, I know nothing about this programming stuff. But after a while, it all starts to make sense.)

PPC-Friendly jailbreak and iphoneinterface?

Any news on a PPC-friendly jailbreak?

my iBook is PPC, outdated!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Unregistered View Post
Any news on a PPC-friendly jailbreak?

my iBook is PPC, outdated!
I'd like to know as well... I have a powerbook g4 and it doesn't have intel... how do I use jailbreak?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Unregistered View Post
Thanks for the great instructions & thanks to the user who posted some ringtones!

A couple of questions:
-Any advice for making new ringtones (ie how do I turn them into short ringtones from m4a files?)
-Do I need to go through the entire process every time I want to add a new ringtone?

Thanks again!!
iPhone will use any file type as a ringtone as long as it's natively supported. Obviously files like .mp3, .aac, .aiff, and .wav will work just fine. If it plays in the iPhone's iPod, it should work.

If you're asking about tips for making a ringtone from a current song, I don't have any tips for you and I think it's best left up to the individual. If you need some software for editing your audio down into a ringtone, I recommend Rogue Amoeba's Fission. It's very simple and completely lossless.

Get a copy of Fission from Rogue Amoeba.com



Quote:
Originally Posted by ijhughesi View Post
do you know how i can delete one of the songs ive added
To delete something from the phone, cd to the directory where the file is located and use the following command to remove it
Code:
rmdir nameoffile.extension
To view a list of files inside of a directory, just use ls

So How do I get files OFF if I want to delete ringtones I've added?

So How do I get files OFF if I want to delete ringtones I've added?

BTW - Very nice hack. Thanks!

rain

converting to .aiff

Is it necessary to convert files you want as sms, mail, etc to .aiff or can you just rename them ex. sms-received.caf

also is there a free program you can use to convert mp3 or m4a to aiff because i dont have quicktime pro.

thanks

Sounds

So after playing with this for a little bit i figured out something. There is a different sound for when you recieve a message and the conversation is open and one for when you arent in a conversation. sms-received.caf is when you are not currently in the conversation (as in when you arent actually reading the text). Anyone figure out what the other sounds are cuz i would like to change them

Quote:
Originally Posted by Louis View Post
So after playing with this for a little bit i figured out something. There is a different sound for when you recieve a message and the conversation is open and one for when you arent in a conversation. sms-received.caf is when you are not currently in the conversation (as in when you arent actually reading the text). Anyone figure out what the other sounds are cuz i would like to change them
EDIT: Whenever you are in the SMS application you get a different ring than when you are in the homescreen or any other applications. sms-received.caf is when you are in the homescreen or any other applications. Im not sure on this one but i would get that receivedmessage.caf and sentmessage.caf are the sounds for when you are in the sms application. can anyone confirm this or any other sounds?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Unregistered View Post
Any news on a PPC-friendly jailbreak?

my iBook is PPC, outdated!
I have a universal version here for anyone that wants to try it out on PowerPC. The universal jailbreak app doesn't seem to work on Intel but it may work on PPC. Let me know!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rain View Post
So How do I get files OFF if I want to delete ringtones I've added?

BTW - Very nice hack. Thanks!

rain
To remove a ringtone (or anything else), go to the item's directory via cd and then use the command rmdir nameoffile.extension to remove it. To actually get the file, you can use getfile nameoffile.extension which will download it for you.

?

im so lost
i have no idea what half this means
i feel real dumb but im so fed up with with dumb ass phone and its lame ringtones
someone help meeee!!!

email:kirbylinn@yahoo.com

thanks guys

Quote:
Originally Posted by louis View Post
Is it necessary to convert files you want as sms, mail, etc to .aiff or can you just rename them ex. sms-received.caf

also is there a free program you can use to convert mp3 or m4a to aiff because i dont have quicktime pro.

thanks
Try using iTunes to convert audio to AIFF. Go to iTunes Preferences>Advanced>Importing and play with settings there. Once you've changed it to AIFF (or whichever file type you're looking for), you can right click a file in iTunes and click "Convert to...(type you've selected)" and you have your AIFF.

Tada!?

System/Library/CoreServices/SpringBoard.app/

I wanna tweek the att logo at the top but i want it to say APPLE. What size do i need to make the words and what do i call it? default_carrier or FSO_carrier? If you dont mind do you just wanna make it for me??

No System/Library/CoreServices/SpringBoard.app/

What program should i use to make a logo?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Louis View Post
So after playing with this for a little bit i figured out something. There is a different sound for when you recieve a message and the conversation is open and one for when you arent in a conversation. sms-received.caf is when you are not currently in the conversation (as in when you arent actually reading the text). Anyone figure out what the other sounds are cuz i would like to change them
Here is a listing of sounds the UI uses:

ReceivedMessage.caf
RingerChanged.caf
SIMToolkitCallDropped.caf
SIMToolkitGeneralBeep.caf
SIMToolkitNegativeACK.caf
SIMToolkitPositiveACK.caf
SIMToolkitSMS.caf
SentMessage.caf
Tink.caf
Tock.caf
Voicemail.caf
alarm.caf
beep-beep.caf
dtmf-0.caf
dtmf-1.caf
dtmf-2.caf
dtmf-3.caf
dtmf-4.caf
dtmf-5.caf
dtmf-6.caf
dtmf-7.caf
dtmf-8.caf
dtmf-9.caf
dtmf-pound.caf
dtmf-star.caf
lock.caf
long_low_short_high.caf
low_power.caf
mail-sent.caf
middle_9_short_double_low.caf
new-mail.caf
photoShutter.caf
short_double_high.caf
short_double_low.caf
short_low_high.caf
sms-received.caf
unlock.caf
ussd.caf

Hope that helps. If you need the actual sound files I can upload them for you. Just ask!

i was just wondering which names go with what sound and what function on the iphone, if you know

Quote:
Originally Posted by sportlouis View Post
I wanna tweek the att logo at the top but i want it to say APPLE. What size do i need to make the words and what do i call it? default_carrier or FSO_carrier? If you dont mind do you just wanna make it for me??
I just used Photoshop. What I did was type over the original text to try and keep it the same size. I was typing over the AT&T logo which is short compared to "iPhone" so I just widened it a bit.

Here's the logo I'm using now which just shows "iPhone" in the carrier spot. To pull it off I just replaced the black version (Default_CARRIER_ATT.png) and the white version (FSO_CARRIER_ATT.png) with the modified ones I made.

Let me know if you can get that going. I'll help more if you need it, though.

Quote:
Originally Posted by sportlouis View Post
i was just wondering which names go with what sound and what function on the iphone, if you know
I just uploaded all the sounds for you. That way you can go through them and figure out which ones you need to replace. You could also sample them to make them louder or loop.

Have fun!

Quote:
Originally Posted by louis View Post
now when i try to redo everything i recieve this message when trying to do ./jailbreak

Looking for iPhone...
Sending Files...
Problem starting AFC: -402653150

Sorry, apparently things just didn't work out.
Look on the bright side, if jail was that good for Paris maybe you should give it a second chance.
looks like its time to do a factory restore on the phone

PPC Macs?

Hey, Theres no way i can do this using my powerbook g4? I just sat creating like 20 ringtones and i cant put them on my phone! dam, please help me figure out how to, i hate the ringtones on my iphone, love the CTU one and made some more i love.. Let me know asap please!
Paul