
Ask HN: What do you think of a “varying ringtone”? - jimijazz
Hi all,<p>I have this buisness idea where I create a way for ringtones to slightly vary on each call, either in rythm, tonality or timbre.<p>This could be done algorithmically, by ensuring the ringtone does not deviate too much from what one can recognize as your phone ringing, but at the same time to vary over time to keep it interesting, suprising, and not end up as an obnoxious sound.<p>How does the HN audience feel about this? Would you use it? 
and would this be feasible to implement in Android and iOS ?
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chad-autry
As a business idea I don't think it would take off. I had a somewhat related
project idea to rotate ringtones.

Such an idea can be done on Android, but would have been impossible on iOS (at
the time, have not looked into it since).

It was mildly popular for download on the store, but supporting issues on
various phones was a hassle, and Android update occasionally changed the
required APIs. Currently the project is broken and on the back-burner to get
it fixed again. However, it is freely available if you want a look.

[https://github.com/chad-autry/rototone](https://github.com/chad-
autry/rototone)

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jimijazz
Hey, this is awesome. Thanks for sharing. Happy to know I'm not the first one
to think about it. While it may be a niche thing, it proves that there is
actually an audience for it. Did you have a price set for it? Did you do any
kind of marketing for it?

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chad-autry
It is true I didn't market it, so possible it suffered a bit from that. Some
of the 'Doesn't work on my device' comments were a bit unexpected (and
unsolvable without $$$ to test on the devices), so I didn't want to spend
money promoting it with issues. I was charging $3 I think, it has been awhile.

There was another seemingly popular paid ringtone app at the time, but I can't
recall what it was. And a search now for 'android ringtone app' now brings up
lists of 'Top X ringtone apps of 2018/2019' populated exclusively by free
apps.

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AwesomeFaic
I don't understand the problem this solves or value it brings. Morning alarms
get annoying with repetition, not ringtones. I'd pivot to dynamic/generated
morning alarms if I were you

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jimijazz
Interesting, thanks for the feedback!

