A Farewell to AudioGizmo

Remember back in 2006 when cell phones were finally smart enough to support MP3 ringtones? If not, I don’t blame you. If you do, you probably also remember the unnecessarily complex process required to actually get an MP3 onto your mobile phone.

Enter AudioGizmo Ringtone Creator.

AudioGizmo was Snowdrop’s first – and only – foray into consumer software development for Windows, born out of a personal annoyance at the effort required to get a decent ringtone onto my Motorola v550. And at the time, it was pretty progressive.

AudioGizmo automatically sorted out what bitrate, format, and transfer process to use when a user selected his or her mobile device. However, it’s most revolutionary feature was that it supported over-the-air (OTA) file transfers when allowed by the device’s mobile browser.

To accomplish this, AudioGizmo uploaded MP3s to a server and sent a link via text message to the user. The link led to a WAP or HTML page, depending on the device, where the user could download and install the MP3 or AAC file as a ringtone.

In its five years of existence, some 358,000 users used AudioGizmo Ringtone Creator to create over 2 million ringtones, far exceeding my expectations of the product. That’s why I announce AudioGizmo’s retirement with both a tear in my eye and a smile on my lips.

(An aside: The one aspect I won’t miss is the utter viciousness of other Windows software companies during AudioGizmo’s heyday. I have yet to experience anything like the deceit and “black hat” techniques of the competition, which included literally thousands of false reviews and comments made by anonymous or “newbie” accounts at the major software directories, like this one.)