Strength lies in tranquillity

Anyone who’s older than 20 today and thinks of the ringing of cell phones will likely recall rather painful moments of nuisance. Mobile ring tones are annoying, loud, glaring, banal and expensive at that. Even among middle schoolers, sales are said to be declining.

That needn’t be, found iRing Pro (“iRing” had already been taken), and developed the ring tone of a new generation: elegant, subtle, sophisticated, for the man of the world. In short: for the iPhone user. With its Zen Collection of 21 ring tones, iRing Pro attempts to aurally reproduce the image and the aesthetics of Apple and the iPhone, conjuring spontaneous reminiscences of expensive brand mineral water and jejune Japanese stone gardens. Or, say, of Kazimir Malevich’s milestone of Modern Art, Black Square. The artistic complexity of the jingles, which — at least as far as the samples on iRing Pro’s website are concerned — consist of nothing but each a single hit or simple broken chord of a smooth elevator bell sound, revolves around a similar level. Besides, a deliberately prolonged pause between the reiterations of the ring tone is advertised as an ergonomic innovation. Ring tones without frills, ring tones to relax to. The ring tone as a minimalist work of art — as PIXAR director Patrick Lin euphorically attests.

As regards pricing, iRing Pro follows the example of the Bauhaus. At an equivalent of roughly $0.47 US per ring tone, the so called “ringers” are affordable for the masses just as well. From a traditional marketing point of view, this somewhat undermines the image of a swanky, upmarket luxury item that iRing Pro promoted in the first step. But only jerks complain about low prices.

The idea of creating a more subdued cell phone style for the VIP-Lounge isn’t completely new. In 2005, Nokia engaged none other than renowned Japanese all-round composer Ryūichi Sakamoto for the ring tones of its 8800 stainless steel cell phone series. Those were provided as pre-installed, however, and one did get the impression that Sakamoto had put some more effort into it than to simply hit two or three keys on his Yamaha DX7.