It may not be easily possible for a young ringtone enthusiast indulging himself in the latest mellifluous melodies to believe that ringtones of bygone days sounded more like computer beeps.
But the truth is that initial ringtones were highly boring due to its monotonous nature.
Those tones have fortunately given way to the fulfilling and highly attractive real tones with sound quality good enough to shame even the most advanced music players.
Hand set owners put a lot of importance to Ringtones, as it proclaims to the world who and what he or she is.
The tastes and likes of the owner are written all over on the caller tones saved in his hand set.
In addition, the astounding variety of tones a user is confronted with provides any one, be it the jovial one, the morose one or a person with any other disposition with tones that match exactly his or her personality.
Another important feature of a modern true tone is the scope for improvisation.
However, it took almost a decade for the Stone Age (as it seems now) monophonic tones to evolve into this phenomenon.
The first commercially sold tone was formatted in RTTTL which is the short form of Ring Tone Text Transfer Language.
The tone was a novelty at that time, even though they seem to be primitive in the eyes (and ears) of the modern enthusiast.
The main feature of this type was that only one sound could be played at a time, but the saving grace was that these sounds with different frequencies could be properly arranged to produce a continuous sound flow.
But the voices (or noises for some) emanating from the cell phones more or less sounded like computer beeps.
Technology never stops at anything.
Development is a continuing process.
As in the case of other products around us, ringtones also changed for the better as a superior format, the polyphonic tones were invented.
The simplistic, strictly made for the purpose monophonic tones were abandoned in a trice in the wake of the advent of the polyphonic tones.
These tones could produce a cacophony of up to sixteen instruments generated sounds at one time, which made the resulting stream of sounds seem like music.
This type of tones is still in vogue.
The biggest innovation in this field so far came about as true tomes or master tones, as they are called by some.
This innovation stormed the market and the hearts of the enthusiast.
With new technologies added to hand sets, it became a cake walk for the user to acquire and load his hand set with the choicest of these tones.
The whopping amounts of interest generated among the public with regard to real tones has kicked up an industry of selling these tones.
The incomes generated are outstanding and the field is still growing in leaps and bounds.
Competition among sellers to attract more customers have brought out some welcome innovations like sing tones and name tones.
For the discerning public, it seems, this is just a beginning.