As my colleague, Dangerous Dan Moren, mentioned, the iTunes Store has turned on the ringtones feature. If you have the will and knowledge to make your own ringtones, Rogue Amoeba has entered the “do-it-yourself” ringtone fray with its free MakeiPhoneRingtone utility. It essentially puts a friendly face on the somewhat convoluted renaming AAC files technique, the one that allows you to fool iTunes into believing that unprotected AAC files are kosher ringtones that can be copied to an iPhone.
With iTunes 7.4.1, Apple showed a willingness to break third-party ringtone tools-it would like you to purchase its $.99 ringtones rather than create your own for free-so who knows how long MakeiPhoneRingtone will function as it should (my guess: about as long as it takes iTunes 7.4.2 to appear). For the time being, however, it works as advertised.
YAY. It seems to work. I just can't do anything with songs I've purchased from iTunes that are locked. Then again, I didn't edit any songs, I just used the utility. When I have a bit more time, I'll try more, I guess...so I guess I won't try much more 'cause time, I don't have.
~C