Change your iOS Defaults: Sounds

I’ve been seeing a lot of new iPhones and iPads in the hands of people. How do I know they’re new? They’re still using the default settings: the background image, default sounds and things like that. If there’s anything we hope to do at Beyond The Defaults, it’s to show our readers how to move beyond what’s delivered out of the box.

So gather ’round everyone, and I’ll show you a few things that will make your device a lot more “personal”.

In this post, I’ll show you how to manage sounds on the device – because the sounds your phone or tablet makes are the first giveaway that you’ve got a new device;  it’s  the most noticeable thing – to both you and the people around you.

Open the settings and find Sounds – then tap on the item in the menu to display the entire array of Sounds options (a snapshot of my iPhone settings are shown on the left).

As you can see there are a number of settings, but here are the ones I think most people should change. Here’s why I encourage these in particular – if every iPhone in the room has the same settings, one phone call, e-mail message or text message will have every iPhone user in the room reaching for their hip or bag. That, and by default the device settings are “noisy”.

Ringtone

Choose something different if you can. I use the Old Phone option, but I also have a few custom tones for specific people. Can you create ringtones from files? Sure you can – and I’ll do a separate post on how you can do that without buying an app.

Text Tone

This is the one that usually gets everyone in the room all reaching for their phones when a new message arrives. The default is Tri-Tone, I use something a little more subtle (Ding), or I’ll just make it None.

New Mail & Sent Mail

I typically recommend setting both of these to None – because people that use smartphones are usually fairly heavy mail users (both incoming and outgoing). No need for the device to make that much noise.

Calendar and Reminder Alerts

Ever sit in a meeting and learn that three people in the room have a meeting right after the one you’re in? That’s because their Calendar Alerts all go off at the same time with the same tone. The default for both is Alert – a good suggestion would be to either use something different or just make it silent.

Lock Sounds & Keyboard Clicks

If you want to draw attention to yourself quickly, leave these two set to the default of On. By doing so, every interaction you have with your phone/tablet will make a clicking noise. I strongly recommend to most people to set both to Off as soon as possible.

One thing you’ve probably noticed in my suggestions – the “None” options is a frequently used and  perfectly good choice. As you’ll see from the snapshot of my Sounds preferences, I use None a lot. Primarily, it’s to be considerate of others (see my Lessons Learned post), but there are other reasons as well – such as not needing a tone when mail arrives during the night or the caller that I didn’t answer left me a voice mail message. My phone will still notify me – I’ve got the Vibrate option on, so in addition to (or in place of) sounds, the device will vibrate.

I’m making the device work the way I want to work, which is exactly what everyone should do.

Now, go forth and personalize.