Bono apologises for putting that free U2 album on your iPhone

completemusicupdate.com:

Bono has apologised for putting that U2 album on your iPhone that time. Yeah, that was in 2014, mate. Bit late really. Although I suppose, it’s only now that he’s got around to writing a book where he can make a full and frank “mea culpa”.For anyone who doesn’t remember this little episode, eight long years ago Apple held a press conference to announce the Apple Watch and the iPhone 6.

And, as a fun bonus, it also announced that all iTunes customers would be getting the new U2 album, ‘Songs Of Innocence’, added to their music libraries completely free of charge.This move proved controversial.

Lots of people, it turned out, didn’t actually want a U2 album in their music libraries – free or otherwise. Actually, a lot of iTunes users were pretty miffed that these songs suddenly started playing without warning when they shuffled their music.Other musicians criticised the move too.

Oh, and the retailers weren’t happy either. Ultimately, the backlash was so strong that Apple had to launch a new app that would permanently delete the album from people’s libraries.At the time, Bono did make a fairly sarcastic apology in a Facebook Q&A with fans, but over time he seems to have become aware of just how big a misstep that whole thing was.In an excerpt from his new memoir, ‘Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story’, published by the Guardian, he writes: “I take full responsibility … I’d thought if we could just put our music within reach of people, they might choose to reach out toward it.