Behind the Story of the iPhone's Default Text Tone

An anonymous reader writes "In a fascinating post from Kelly Jacklin, the long time Apple software engineer details how he helped create the default text alert sound on the iPhone — a sound otherwise known as 'Tri-tone.' The history of the the pleasant text alert sound that we've all come to know and love stretches all the way back to 1998, nearly 10 years before the iPhone ever hit store shelves." Here's Jacklin's post.

Comments

Here's the sound

[the_other_chewey]

Not being an iThing user myself, I didn't know what this Tri-tone
is supposed to be. And it doesn't seem to playable at or even linked
to from any of the story links.

So here it is.

Aaaaah, that one.

Thanks, timothy

[Sockatume]

I know that the Slashdot editors get a lot of stick for apparently being asleep at the wheel, but taking the time to add the original source article and not just the blog provided in the original submission is very welcome.

Re:Attention to detail

[Sockatume]

Or in this case the attention to detail of a sound designer creating a sound effect for a different product that Apple would eventually buy out, and reuse the sound from in another completely different product for a completely different purpose.

Kudos to Apple for picking a sound out of all the possible Apple-owned sound effects that sounds appropriately "messagey", especially in comparison to the specially-composed ring- and message-tones it had to compete with, but the nerdly attention to detail belongs to someone else.

Re:Hardly Iconic

[Sockatume]

The Nokia Tune predates polyphonic ringtones. You've not really heard it unless you've heard it in its original dentist-drill format, in its preferred setting of "important part of movie you've been waiting to see for months" or "close enough to hear, but too far to reach and silence, while you are attempting to fall asleep".

Not really a "tritone"

[Clueless Moron]

In music lingo, "tritone" just means an interval of six semitones, or an augmented fourth. It's the strange sound you get when playing a C and F# at the same time.

Re:Not really a "tritone"

[harperska]

The original quote from Jacklin's blog is:

I wanted a happy feel, so notes from the major scale, focussing on I, III, IV, V, and VIII (the octave).

But yes, it's clear that to the article writer 'octave' was simply a buzzword, and he didn't grasp the significance of the roman numerals. So he assumed that those numerals were different sorts of 'octaves'.

Re:ass pounder v.1.0

[BrokenHalo]

how many iphones can you pack in your ass at once without leakage?

I don't think the wombat features highly in the /. demographic:

As you splash along the track
Eyes alert and ears pinned back
You might have seen those queer square turds
And thought, if not expressed in words

The stress of such a defecation
Baffles ones' imagination
But it's not done to entertain us -
The Wombat has an oblong anus.

So if your slumber is disturbed
By cries and screams, don't be perturbed.
Eyes closed, teeth clenched and racked with pain
A Wombat's gone and crapped again!!

HTH

Not to be confused

[trumpetplayer]

Tri-tone as in "melody using 3 tones", not to be confused with the tritone interval http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritone which is considered the most dissonant interval there is in the so called just intonation system.

Re:ass pounder v.1.0

[pongo000]

All I can say is never in a million years did I think I would ever search for "wombat turds." Even more surreal is this video. I'm just astounded. Fuck the iPhone tritone, this is far more interesting....