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. He has a cautious image, but in fact, he has been heavily criticized by users for an experiment he has made with his flagship iPhone.
The YouTube channel ‘Apple Explained’, which is familiar with Apple, explains this event.
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“Free distribution of albums of super famous bands” bought the anger of iPhone users
At the launch of the iPhone 6, Tim Cook took the stage with Irish rock band U2 to announce their new album, Songs Of Innocence, for 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 seems like a wonderful surprise 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 a 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 vocalist 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 was looking for a way to get new fans.
At the same time, CEO Tim Cook struggled 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: revitalize iTunes, gain user support, and at the same time allow U2 to ride a new wave of popularity.
But the concept will infuriate iPhone users with its poor specs. Surprisingly, after the album “Songs Of Innocence” was released, it was designed to be downloaded to the devices of about 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 minimum 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 were choosing albums to download carefully.
Naturally, I wouldn’t like it if an album of 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 it’s released.
U2 lead vocalist 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 over the last few years might never be heard.
There is no doubt that both Apple and U2 deliver great products and music to their fans. However, a small mistake in promotion resulted in major criticism from users.