100 at any time via a few simple steps, as is known to those skilled in the art.

The list of the senders enabled to activate the alert ringtone by sending a message flagged as “urgent” can be stored into the module 107a of the memory means 107.

In order to only allow authorized senders to play the alert ringtone, the processing means 105 can be configured for checking the sender's identity. In fact, the identity of the sender of an urgent message can be extracted by the mobile communication apparatus 100 directly from the urgent message received; the sender's identity can then be compared with the list of authorized senders contained in the module 107a of the memory means 107. The alert ringtone will then be played or not as a function of the result of such comparison. In particular, if such comparison has a positive outcome (i.e., if the sender of the urgent message is included in the list of authorized senders), then the mobile communication apparatus will play the alert ringtone; conversely, if the sender of the urgent message is not included in the list of authorized senders, then the communication apparatus 100 may automatically discard the message or, alternatively, notify the reception thereof by means of the generic ringtone.

Alternatively, or in combination with the aforementioned list of authorized senders, the invention foresees also the advantageous option to define the authorized senders automatically depending on the communication log of the mobile communication apparatus. In this case the automatic definition of authorized senders is preferably based on the number, frequency and/or duration of communication with certain senders having the highest values compared to other senders or exceeding a threshold and/or may be based on the presence of existing redundant data related to an specific sender in other applications of the mobile communication apparatus such as the calendar, email, contacts, tasks or the like, from which a trust level about the specific sender is derived and consequently the specific sender is automatically defined as authorized sender. As aforesaid, the ringtones that the mobile communication apparatus 100 can play are grouped, by way of illustrative and non-limiting example, into the blocks 107b, 107c, 107d, 107e and 107f of the memory means 107; such ringtones may undergo modifications over time, and some may be added to or removed from the existing ones or remain unused. According to the present invention, therefore, the “Ringtone management 105b” module can monitor the ringtones that are being actually used in the mobile communication apparatus 100 and can notify the user about any changes that may concern them. The user can, following such notifications and other changes that he/she may come to know about via other channels, or directly made by him/herself, verify whether the alert ringtone in use is still adequate or not and decide whether to keep it or replace it.

For example, when a mobile communication apparatus made in accordance with the present invention, in particular the mobile communication apparatus 100 for cellular networks, moves from a first country to a second country, the networks with which it can affiliate may change and so may, as a consequence, any ringtones that the operators of such networks and other organizations may send to the mobile communication apparatus 100. In the user identification means 103, which in this case may consist of a USIM or another type of module equivalent thereto as concerns the functions involved herein, one can find the list of the networks with which the mobile communication apparatus 100 is authorized to affiliate in said second country, and by means of this information the mobile communication apparatus 100 can retrieve, via communication means or from a table previously stored in the memory means 107, the ringtones that may be received from such networks. The user of the mobile communication apparatus 100 can thus compare these new ringtones with the alert ringtone in use, verify the discernibility of the latter, and decide whether to replace it or keep it in use.

In some embodiments of the present invention, the alert ringtone may, in some cases, be replaced automatically by the processing means 105. For example, if the mobile communication apparatus 100 moves to said second country, the “Ringtone management 105b” module may, by using the localization means 106 and the data stored in the memory means 107, verify if the move has occurred towards a zone for which an appropriate alert ringtone has already been prepared and stored into the “Available alert ringtones 107f” module, and verify if the conditions associated with that alert ringtones are still valid. If such conditions are still valid, the “Ringtone management 105b” module may automatically set said ringtone as the alert ringtone. In other embodiments of the invention, in the same situation the “Ringtone management 105b” module may, via the interface means 104, request the user to authorize the change, effecting such change only if the authorization is granted.

For this purpose, the automatic selection of the alert ringtone associated with a situation of urgency may be started when the user (or the operator with which the mobile apparatus is associated) updates the association between generic ringtones and generic messages.

Likewise, the automatic selection of the urgent ringtone may be updated when the mobile communication apparatus moves between distinct geographical areas.

Moreover, since adding or removing one or more ringtones to/from the memory 107 may jeopardize the discernibility of the alert ringtones from the generic ringtones, the selection of the alert ringtone may be updated whenever a ringtone is added to or removed from the memory 107.

In order to establish if the alert ringtone in use is still adequate after changes occurred to one or more ringtones that the mobile communication apparatus 100 can play, it will suffice to evaluate if it is still sufficiently discernible from such ringtones, because it can be assumed that it is already known to and appreciated by the user. This evaluation may be at least partly automated. To this end, in some embodiments of the invention the “Ringtone management 105b” module may be provided with a melody comparison algorithm, of a type similar to those that permit identifying a song from a few beats. Some examples of such algorithms can be found on the following Internet sites: “https://www.shazam.com/it”, “https://www.midomi.com/”, “http://www.musipedia.org/melody_search.html”, “http://audiotag.info/index.php”, and the like. In some embodiments of the invention, therefore, at least one of these algorithms may be used, possibly adapted for this specific application, in order to ascertain that the melody of the alert ringtone is discernible from the other ringtones in use or from new ringtones being added. If the melody is discernible, the user will be exempted from any verification, and the “Ringtone management 105b” module will be allowed to automatically confirm the alert ringtone in use.

In particular, in order to make an optimal selection of the alert ringtone, it is possible to determine, by means of a comparison algorithm, at least one correlation parameter between the generic ringtone and each one of the alert ringtones stored in the memory