The Morse Code Ringtone – Caller ID From the 1830s!

Morse code is an ancient means of communication in the minds of most people. The Morse code ringtone, however, continues to bring the simplicity and usefulness of Morse to today’s cell phones! While some people use Morse code ringtones because they think it ‘sounds cool’, many actually use Morse ringtones for caller id.

What are Morse Code Ringtones?

Assuming you are familiar with what Morse is (if not, you can look it up at Wikipedia), a Morse code ringtone is simply a ringtone that is made up of dots and dashes that are sequenced so as to communicate a message–often some sort of caller id. This way, when someone calls you, you can listen to the Morse coded message and know who is calling you without even looking at your phone!

Android Takes the Morse Ringtone to a New Level!

The problem with Morse ringtones has historically been that in order to really be useful, you would have create a static mp3 or wav file for each person in your contact list. This was necessary so that the phone could play a unique message for each caller–such as the caller’s name.

All this has changed, however, due to the advent of the Android smart phone! Because the Android platform allows users to easily write applications that can interact with the phone, a single application can be installed on the cell phone allowing the phone to dynamically generate Morse based on the name or number of the incoming caller. This way, you Morse coded messages can be generated on the fly rather than manually one at a time!