Pointless Computer Tricks: Why I disabled my ringtone
Previously I wrote about how I made a silent ringtone to manage telemarketers. While that method worked as expected, unfortunately it wasn’t enough.
On average, I receive about ten (10) ‘junk’ calls for each ‘real’ call. Which almost renders the phone unusable. Adding known telemarketers to a contact (as mentioned before) helped some, but it only blocks those numbers. Over time, that contact became unwieldy, as it contains too many numbers. And yet the calls still come in. So another method was needed.
For the sake of discussion, I define ‘junk’ calls as being any call from someone that I do not want to talk to. Unsolicited sales calls, scammers, or even people I don’t know. Basically, any call that isn’t from someone I already know is junk. And that was actually the key to the solution I have moved to.
Default Ringtone
The default ringtone on my phone is now the ‘silent’ ringtone. In other words, my phone doesn’t ring. How is this an improvement? Now none of the junk calls cause the phone to ring. They still connect, still show as missed calls, but I don’t hear them. This leads to fewer pointless interruptions.
How then do I manage people that I do want to talk to?
Custom Ringtones
For any person that I know, I set a custom ringtone. I use one for my family, one for my clients, and one for everyone else (that is in my contact list).
When I switched to this method, it did take some time to assign a custom ringtone to everyone. I didn’t think it took that long, but you might have more contacts then I. Now I assign a custom ringtone whenever I add a new contact. Which isn’t very often, as I rarely add new contacts.
Limitations
The down side to this method is that the first time someone calls me, I won’t hear it ring. Voice mail will still work, and they can leave a message. At which point, I’ll add a contact for this person, and assign the appropriate ringtone. On future calls the phone will ring as it should.