CEO Tim Cook, who took over Apple from Steve Jobs and has grown it into a large company with a market capitalization of over 3 trillion yen. Although he has a cautious image, in fact, he has received a lot of criticism from users for a certain experiment he did with his main product, the iPhone.
The YouTube channel ‘Apple Explained’, familiar with Apple, explains this incident.
*Category:technology Technology ｜ *Source: Apple explained, wikipedia, Apple, BBC
“Giving out albums of super famous bands for free” angered iPhone users
At the launch of the iPhone 6, Tim Cook took to the stage with the Irish rock band U2 to announce their new album, Songs Of Innocence, free to all iTunes users.
U2 is a legendary rock band that has been active with the same members since their debut in 1980. The band has won 22 Grammy Awards and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005.
At first glance, it is surprising that U2’s new album will be distributed for free. But the promotion was a rare failure in Cook’s career.
Why did Apple suddenly distribute the U2 album in the first place? The reason is the long friendship between Apple and U2 since Steve Jobs was CEO.
Jobs was friends with various musicians such as John Mayer, Coldplay, and U2. That’s why Apple often collaborates with them, and has released four special versions of the U2 on the iPod.
This relationship continues with Product RED, a charity co-founded by U2 lead singer Bono to fight HIV/AIDS in African countries. In Apple’s long history, U2 and Apple have a close and inseparable relationship.
When the iPhone 6 was announced, U2 was not well known among young people and was sluggish. So U2 were looking for a way to get new fans.
At the same time, CEO Tim Cook was struggling to keep iTunes relevant in the face of Spotify’s explosive growth. So Apple came up with the seemingly clever idea of creating an exclusive U2 album on iTunes and giving it away for free to all iTunes users.
This was an unprecedented attempt, but hopefully it would kill two birds with one stone: revive iTunes, gain user support, and at the same time allow U2 to ride a new wave of popularity.
But the concept will upset iPhone users with its poor specifications. Surprisingly, after the album “Songs Of Innocence” was released, it was designed to be downloaded onto the devices of approximately 500 million iPhone users without permission.
Back in 2014, iTunes music libraries were stored directly on users’ devices. It’s not streaming like Apple Music is today.
Also, the smallest capacity model of iPhone 6 announced at the same event was only 16GB, which limited the storage that could be used for iTunes. Therefore, users chose albums to download carefully.
Naturally, I wouldn’t like it if an album from a band I didn’t know was suddenly downloaded to iTunes. What’s more, it’s hard to believe now, but that album couldn’t even be deleted like other albums.
This specification angered many iPhone users, and Apple was forced to deal with it. After all, Apple distributes a tool that lets you delete an album just a week after its release.
U2 lead singer Bono also apologized in an interview for the promotion.
Oops, sorry about that. (Omitted) Artists tend to do that. There’s this delusion of megalomania, generosity, self-assertion, and a deep fear that the song I’ve been working so hard on for the last few years might never be heard.
There is no doubt that Apple and U2 provide their fans with great products and music. However, a small mistake in promotion led to a lot of criticism from users.
