Silent ringtone consistently removed from iPhone 6
I rely on the Silent ringtone as a business professional in Silicon Valley to keep my sanity, and only answer calls with distinct rings from my Contacts. All other calls (telemarketers, wrong numbers, etc.) are silenced.
Starting with the iPhone 5, I created a silent ringtone to assign as the default ringtone. I select those in my Contacts to various other identifiable ringtones.
My iPhone model: iPhone 6 (Model MG4V2LL/A)
Operating system: iOS 8.1.2
Memory: 128GB
I need help in figuring out how to keep Apple from removing a ringtone that does not emit sound, so I can continue screening out unwelcome and unwanted telemarketer scumbags, and creditors who have the wrong number and ask for people like "Jesus Hernandez" with a note it's a law firm who is collecting a debt. That sort of riff-raff.
Background:
Starting with iOS 8.1 and up to the latest iOS 8.1.2 (I'm vigilant in updating for security purposes as a business professional), I noticed my Silent ringtone went from silent to a sound reminiscent of an antique clock (tick-tock-tick, tick-tock, repeat once). Not knowing how to remove it, I created a Silent2 ringtone. After a few weeks, that ringtone went from silent to the exact same clock sound as the first Silent ringtone. I created Silent3, Silent4, Silent5, and Silent6 ringtones. My theory was that if Silent2 is converted to a clock sound, I'll switch to Silent3, and so forth. However, when Silent3 switched to a clock sound (exactly the same as original clock sound), and I switched to Silent4, I noticed it too sounded like the same clock. When I clicked on the remaining Silent ringtones (Silent4 and Silent5), they too were the same clock sound!
Due to telemarketers flooding my phone, the Silent ringtone was invaluable in avoiding silencing the ringer. I was forced at this point to silence it, unless I knew an important call was coming.
So I bit the bullet, figuring Apple was sending a message, essentially, "Don't create your own ringtones, you cheapskate! They're only a little over a buck, and people like you are ruining this economy for the little guy!" Instead of argue that supposition based on economics, the free market, capitalism, all that good stuff that everyone seems to want to get rid of, I paid $1.29 for a Silent ringtone that got decent reviews.
Then iOS 8.1.2 came out. After I installed it, behold: My purchased Silent ringtone was gone! I went to my purchase history and it was not there. Instead of spending who knows how long on Apple's toll-free number arguing over $1.29 (as my time is more valuable), I took the hit. At least they were deleting it now, instead of converting it to a clock sound, I figured. This is good, because instead of going back to creating Silent ringtones myself and having them pile up like in iOS 8.1, with iOS 8.2 they just periodically sweep my iPhone 6 for any ringtone that is silent (probably because some well-funded telemarketing organization or creditor association realized people were abusing the Silent ringtone to prevent them from constantly calling people), and paid Apple to purge these ringtones. I'm sure some Apple fanboy will tell me that simply isn't true! For those who trust Apple implicitly and know they wouldn't allow money to influence a decision to selectively silence caller rings, I hope you're right, I really do.
I just replaced the Silent ringtone I created. I refuse to keep buying $1.29 Silent ringtones (used to be $0.99 but inflation has evidently hit Silent ringtone sellers) every time my purchase is purged from my phone and ringtone purchase history. You're probably only talking about maybe $15 per year (at the current purge rate of once every few weeks), but I have to put my foot down! So I simply keep adding it back, having hidden my own homegrown Silent ringtone on my computer.
NOTE: I renamed it thinking they were searching for the word "silent," but apparently there are heuristics that determine if a ringtone is emitting a sound or not.
If anyone can help, or at least tell me they experienced the same thing, I would greatly appreciate it!
To give you evil ideas, here is how you exploit the Silent ringtone to stop the rings of unwanted callers:
1. Install the Silent ringtone (either by buying it or making one yourself).
2. Save the ringtone file somewhere on your computer.
3. Set the Silent ringtone as your default ringtone in Settings > Sounds.
4. Assign each of your Contacts whom you want to answer calls from, to any ringtone (I use different ringtones to identify them).
5. Boom! Problem solved! 🙂
I'm curious to see over the coming months, if anyone who does this (or did it) is seeing their Silent ringtones disappear, and if so, can you reinstall it from your purchases at the Apple Store?
Thanks.
iPhone 6, iOS 8.1.2, Silent ringtone keeps disappearing.