Just wondering if it is possible to have the iPhone play a song when placing someone on hold. Could be a useful application.

have you tried this? it would be kinda nifty and i just had to try it with some interesting results.

i called the phone, placed on hold. the other person gets a beeping noise.
pushed home, then ipod. it does infact allow you to play music while you are on a call however the other person does not hear it and it comes out the ear speaker.
took the call off hold and the music was still playing but the other end still did not hear it.

so apparently you can listen to your ipod while you are on hold but not play hold music for someone else

Hold music is dependant on the settings of your carrier, as the phone only instructs that the call be placed in a holding queue on the carrier's systems. Some carriers allow you to have hold music, but you pay extra for it, and I don't believe it's part of any standard listed service.

That all depends. It can be a carrier based service, but it is also possible on the phone. I remember my old SE phone that had a horrible midi hold music. Some old Nokia phones played a message 'you are now on hold'. Software wise it doesn't have to be a huge application, all it needs is to mute the microphone and then play audio through the input interface.
Too bad I cannot programm.

yeah i think its the carrier dependent

Originally Posted by PvD

yeah i think its the carrier dependent

please read previous comment stating there can be also a local solution.

Originally Posted by McMark

That all depends. It can be a carrier based service, but it is also possible on the phone. I remember my old SE phone that had a horrible midi hold music. Some old Nokia phones played a message 'you are now on hold'. Software wise it doesn't have to be a huge application, all it needs is to mute the microphone and then play audio through the input interface.
Too bad I cannot programm.

That's a good idea !
You can place an [App Request] in the Native Applications Section.