A truetone is a ring tone which has has been encoded with a high fidelity format such MP3, AAC, or WMA format, and represents the latest evolution of the ringtone. It is often also referred to as a mastertone or realtone.

Ringtones surprised the industry and kickstarted the mobile content market by demonstrating a robust demand for self-expression and customization, initially amongst teens but then extending into the mass market. The first generation of ringtones were monophonic instrumental encodings of popular and sometimes original tunes. Users paid approximately $1 to download these to their mobile phones, optionally attaching them to incoming calls from select individuals in their address books. Second generation polyphonic ringtones first became popular in 2002 and encoded sequences of MIDI commands that provided higher fidelity, but these too were purely instrumental. In 2004 ringtones represented a $4 billion global market, almost all of it outside the US. However, the US is catching up, and U.S ringtone revenues should surpass $600 million in 2006. Some have pointed to the irony that many young people resist paying $0.99 for a full song, often pirating it instead, but often purchase multiple snippets of the song to use as ringtones at $2.50-$5 each.

Realtones have quickly upstaged polyphonics and have taken over the ringtone market. In Q2 2006, realtones accounted for more than 76 percent of mobile consumer spending on music personalization. It's interesting that although realtones are technically mobile music, their popularity is driven by the need for self-expression rather than standard enjoyment, a la iPod.

Ringtones have also had a dramatic effect on the mobile content value chain. Monophonic and polyphonic ringtones had to be published for each of the phone models - this led to the growth of various successful businesses for companies such as Infospace and Jamba, who would both publish the tones and interact with carriers for their distribution and billing. On the other international mobile content providers like www.bdmobile.tk competed with them by providing trutones for free. However, as the market shifted to truetones and the formats standardized to Internet-standard formats, the added value of such third parties has diminished, and labels have chosen to publish their own songs and interact directly with the mobile carriers for billing and distribution, thereby cutting out these middlemen. Truetones represent a high-growth revenue stream for the music business, and labels often release the tones before the singles to prime the market - as an example, Madonna release her song "Hung Up" as a truetone before release the single. Truetones often outsell singles.