Silent ringtones seem to be self contradictory. Why would you want to keep your ringtone silent? After all, the whole point of ringtones is to have an original, interesting and fun music excerpt that personalizes your phone. By turning it off, or making it otherwise inaudible to other people, you might as well not have downloaded one at all, right? There's no sound to show off, no song that will make you smile or get your foot tappin' to the music each time someone makes a call.

But there is a real purpose served by silent ringtones. As anyone will tell you, phone etiquette demands that people turn off their phones during certain occasions because the music will be distracting. For example, most schools nowadays ban the use of mobile phones in classrooms.

It should be remembered that there is no such thing as a silent ringtone. If a ringtone makes no noise then you would not be able to hear it. A silent ringtone emits a high frequency sound that most people over the age of 25 can't hear so a pupil in a classroom can be confident that even if their phone rings while they are in class the chances are although they can hear it ringing the teacher will not be able to. Hence the term "silent ringtone".

So that is the purpose of silent ringtones. While it may not suit the typical belief that you should announce your personality in a fun and loud ringtone, it does prove useful in certain situations.

Can you hear the silent ringtone? Philip Nicosia discusses this and other ringtones topics on his personal blog.