When I first heard about the then-rumored iPhone sometime last year, my immediate thought was how easily such a device by Apple could destroy the ringtone market. Then the iPhone was released and perplexingly you could not set your own iTunes music as a ringer on the phone, now it’s becoming clear why. It looks like at the event on this coming Wednesday, Apple could be announcing the sale of ringtones through iTunes (if they don’t call them iTones I’d be utterly shocked, it just fits so nicely).

Word is that any song purchased through iTunes will be able to be made into a ringtone for the iPhone for an additional fee. Yes, the additional fee part sucks, but I can’t imagine it will be anymore than the 99 cents Apple currently chargers for an entire song, so that will drastically undercut the regular ringtone market with it’s $5 ringtones.

The idea of paying $2 – $5 for a ringtone has always been very humorous to me. As I noted, you can get an entire song on iTunes for 99 cents, you can buy an entire album for $9.99 or less, or you can even go to a store an get a physical CD for anywhere from $7 to $13 – why the hell would anyone in their right mind pay $5 for a 30-second clip of a song in what is often awful quality? But obviously people do as worldwide the ringtone business is an over $3.5 BILLION dollar a year industry!

If Apple does in fact launch this iTones service and one day extends it beyond the iPhone they could completely destroy an entire industry – especially if they ever release a mobile version of iTunes (as has been rumored).