Yes, the newest release of iToner by Ambrosia Software DOES work with the latest version of iPhone’s OS update, 1.1.1, and iTunes 7.4.2, and it works very well.

Anyone with an Apple iPhone knows by now that iTunes sells ringtones, and that iTunes version 7.4.2 made all the previous tricks for adding ringtones for free obsolete, and I know there are plenty of iPhone owners who don’t want to “jailbreak” their precious iPhones (I don’t) and risk winding up with a brick when Apple udpates the iPhone software.

Enter iToner – a terrific and affordably priced ($15) app for Mac users that makes it simple – and hack-free – to add unlimited ringtones to your iPhone at no extra charge. If you only want to add a couple of ringtones, you may be better off to just buy them through iTunes, but if, like me, you enjoy having a custom ringtone for most of your family and friends, then iToner is a better choice.

You’ll still have to create your ringtone first, which you can do simply and easily using iTunes to crop and copy a song to a ringtone snippet (see my previous post on creating ringtones – the instructions about using iTunes to create the ringtone still applies) however, this method doesn’t give you any fancy fade-in/fade-out options. If you really like a fade in to your ringtone, you can either use GarageBand (part of the iLife suite) or another nifty tool, Fission from RogueAmoeba ($32, but I find Fission to be much easier to use than GarageBand), or my personal favorite, the very simple-to-use WireTap Studio ($30) from Ambrosia Software.

Once you have a ringtone created, it’s as simple as drag and drop to use iToner to put the new ringtone onto your iPhone. You don’t need iTunes open to sync your new ringtones, and they appear sorted alphabetically along with all of your stock ringtones. No fuss, no muss, no problems. For that I give it 5 paws.

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