October 13, 2006: Apple launches its limited-edition iPod nano (Product) Red Special Edition music player, with 10% of profits going to fight AIDS in Africa.
Created in association with U2 lead singer Bono and activist/attorney Bobby Shriver, it’s the first of many Apple philanthropic products. “We’re ecstatic that Apple is giving their customers the choice to buy a red iPod nano and help women and children affected by HIV/AIDS in Africa,” Bono says in a statement.
September 15, 2014: Responding to its disastrous U2 album giveaway, Apple provides iPhone owners with a tool for wiping all signs of Songs of Innocence from their phones.
It comes after one of the strangest PR debacles in Apple history. After putting a free copy of U2’s latest release on every iPhone owner’s handset as a special promotion, millions find themselves with an album they didn’t order in their iTunes library. Many weren’t happy about it.
June 14, 2007: Paul McCartney sings his new song “Dance Tonight” in an iPod + iTunes ad, the latest in a series of spots starring music industry legends.
The new animated ad signifies a thawing of the icy relationship between Apple and McCartney, whose original band The Beatles has been locked in a legal battle with Cupertino for decades.
Lisa Brennan Jobs, the oldest daughter of Steve Jobs, is coming out with her first book next month. Part of the story grapples with their complicated relationship. (He denied being her father at first.)
In an excerpt from her book, Small Fry, posted today, Lisa Brennan Jobs gives glimpses into some of her dad’s last months. She also talks about how it affected her psyche when he named the Lisa computer after her but didn’t admit it to her until she was 27.
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Spotify is taking some flack after getting carried away promoting the June 29 release of hip-hop artist Drake’s new album “Scorpion.” In an effort to commemorate the release by the streaming services most-played artist, Spotify spent the weekend highlighting the Canadian artist’s music. These highlights came through Drake-inspired playlists, banners, and the use of his image on playlists without his music.
This week, on The CultCast: Apple aims to end music downloads; you can now live stream your aerial drone flights to iDevices worldwide; staggering facts about who’s making money in the app store; creators of Siri demo an even smarter AI; the ridiculous resale value of old Apple tech; and we reveal our Best List of the gadgets we’re currently coveting.
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Festivities for Apple’s 40th birthday have spilled over onto Apple Music this week, with an all-new playlist that celebrates songs from the company’s iconic ads over the years.
The 40-song playlist spotlights some of the best tunes of the present and the past. It’s available to all Apple Music subscribers, and includes hits from The Beatles, Rolling Stone, Eminem, Adele, Daft Punk, Lauryn Hill, Coldyplay, U2 and Bob Dylan.
Check out the full track list:
Chances are you can vaguely remember the last Apple ad you saw, but do you remember it in the same way you remember the company’s “1984” commercial for the original Macintosh, or its wonderful “Think Different” campaign? It’s been a while since we saw anything quite as iconic.
Apple still creates great commercials we can’t help but talk about, but many fans would say those ads aren’t as good as they once were. Has Apple lost its marketing magic, or is it just too difficult to create truly iconic ads in the digital age?
Join us in this week’s Friday Night Fight between Cult of Android and Cult of Mac as we battle it out over these questions and more!
Apple and U2 have gotten together again to promote their greatness, only instead of force feeding you an album you don’t want, this time the duo is diving into virtual reality for the band’s new video for “Song for Someone.”
Some people just won’t let go, will they?
Still upset about Apple’s much-maligned U2 album giveaway last year, Russian politician Alexander Starovoitov has come up with a new complaint we’ve not heard before: That by gifting Songs of Innocence to millions of iTunes customers around the world, Apple was knowingly distributing gay pornography.
If found guilty, Apple could be forced to cease operations in Russia for 90 days, or pay 1 million roubles in fines.
SAN FRANCISCO — Another Apple event, another mysterious building sprouting up seemingly overnight. They pop up to shield Apple’s prep work from prying eyes, but they also fuel the imaginations of anybody who’s interested in Cupertino’s next move.
The latest such structure — this time with solid white walls and a tented, tarp-like roof — isn’t nearly as elaborate as the gigantic building erected before last fall’s Apple Watch event, but the mysteries concealed could be gigantic.
The big reveal comes at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts next Monday, when we will almost assuredly learn more about the Apple Watch (among other things). Until then, all we can do is wait and wonder: What could be hidden inside Apple’s mystery tent?
Despite angering iOS users by forcing their album, Songs of Innocence, onto every iPhone and iPad in the world, U2’s iTunes exclusivity bet is paying off big time.
Nearly one in four of all music users on iOS devices listened to U2 in January, which was nearly double the second most popular artist, Taylor Swift. The force-fed album debuted last fall but its impact is still visible five months later, according to Kantar’s latest survey of iOS users, which found that 23% of all music users on iOS listened to at least one U2 track in January.
Here’s the top 10 artists in January:
2014 was an absolutely monumental year for Apple. Haters will hate, but one thing can’t be denied: This is a company that refuses to rest on its laurels.
Under Tim Cook’s leadership, Apple debuted a new product category with the Apple Watch, sold a record number of new iPhones, made the biggest acquisition in its history, and successfully sent its suffering stock price back into the stratosphere.
The company wasn’t without its missteps, but all in all, it’s hard to call 2014 anything short of a blow-away year for Apple.
It’s been one month since Apple blasted U2’s loud, proud, and totally free new album, Song of Innocence, onto every iTunes account in the world, and now the the complaints have died down, Eddie Cue has revealed how enormously successful the free album has been.
Over 81 million iTunes users have ‘experienced’ Song of Innocence Cue told Billboard, and further divulged that downloads of the album in its entirety have topped 26 million.
There are few Apple fans more enthusiastic than actor, author and TV presenter Stephen Fry, who even dedicates whole chapters of his autobiography to describing the impact the Macintosh had on his life. Fry was in Cupertino for the unveiling of the iPhone 6, 6 Plus and Apple Watch last month. Thoughts from the ever-eloquent thesp? “Want, want, want; drool, drool drool.”
That about sums it up.
Photo: Stephenfry.uk
“It just works.”
Those three words are synonymous with Apple. It’s the slogan Apple fanboys use when trying to convince their Android-loving friends that iOS is a better option. And it was used over and over by Steve Jobs as he unveiled new products at Apple keynotes.
That makes it even more embarrassing for the Cupertino company when things don’t “just work.” Especially when it royally screws things up — as it did with the hideously half-baked iOS 8.0.1 update that rolled out to millions of users Wednesday morning.
Former Guns N’ Roses lead guitarist Slash has praised U2’s poorly received iTunes album giveaway as a clever marketing strategy.
“There’s a lot less opportunities in the record business to get a deal and get a record out there, and there’s not a lot of radio play for it,” he told Ultimate Classic Rock magazine.
Describing the music business in 2014 as “like the wild, wild west,” he continued that this was “one of those kind of tactics that only U2 could really get away with doing.”
The reviews are in! We’ll tell you what people love and don’t about the iPhone 6… Then, RIP, iPod Classic. We remember the humble beginnings of the device that built the new Apple. And finally, Apple announced a base price of $349 for the Apple Watch, sure, but the prices for the other editions might make even Rolex envious. All that plus the lesser known features of iOS 8; how to get U2 out of your iTunes; and a new social video app has us taking more selfies than ever.
Titter your way through each week’s best Apple stories! Stream or download new and past episodes of The CultCast now on your Mac or iDevice by subscribing on iTunes, or hit play below and let the chuckles begin.
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Following on from its recent Songs of Innocence album giveaway, U2 is apparently working with Apple on a secret new project, according to a TIME article.
While the story doesn’t give too many specifics, it does note that the project relates to “a new digital music format [the band hopes] will prove so irresistibly exciting to music fans that it will tempt them again into buying music –whole albums as well as individual tracks.”
Although this sounds the kind of counterintuitive move that utterly goes against Apple’s most recent promotional music stunt (where it paid U2 and its record label a reported $100 million to put out its album for free), U2 notes that it’s thinking about more than just itself:
As the hands-on demo sessions wrap up, a few people linger inside Apple's mystery building.
CUPERTINO, California — I’m a sports photographer, not a tech blogger, so I felt out of place shooting Apple’s big iPhone 6 press event with my iPhone 5s.
Baseball is what I do — I’ve shot nine Sports Illustrated covers — but I swear it was easier getting field access to shoot a World Series game at Fenway Park than dealing with all the people and security at Apple’s event.
This thing was a free-for-all. It was crazy. The place was flooded with media types from all over the world, all standing in line to get into the Flint Center for the Performing Arts, where the event was held.
Apple had to give users a tool to permanently remove U2’s freebie album from their iTunes account, but according to Eddie Cue the album is a colossal hit and has been ‘experienced’ by 33 million iTunes account holders since its release six days ago.
Apple’s historic launch of U2’s new album Songs of Innocence to 500 million iTunes users hasn’t exactly been well-received. After less than 1 percent of iTunes users downloaded the freebie album on the first day, Apple shoved it down users’ throats by automatically downloading to devices withdisastrous results.
Now, after everyone’s had a weekend to cool off, Apple’s offering users an innovative solution in the form of a support site dedicated to teaching iTunes users how to pry U2’s spam album off their Mac or iPhone for good.
Here are the steps Apple recommends:
It’s been a huge week for Apple news, with the special event this past Tuesday along with a few stories you may have missed. Watch Cult of Mac’s news roundup to see the latest on the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, the Apple Watch, U2’s latest album and another new product market Apple might be entering.
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Whether you wanted it or not, U2’s new album is in the purchased section of your iTunes account.
Apple inked a $100 million deal with its favorite band to put Songs of Innocence in the hands of over 500 million iTunes users, and now the album has seen over two million downloads as a result—or about 0.4% of the iTunes Store’s user base.
U2’s partnership with Apple created the biggest album release ever this week with over 500 million iTunes customers receiving Song of Innocence for free, with just one bromantic touching of fingers, but according to U2’s manager, Guy Oseary, the band has even more plans in development with Apple.
Giving away U2’s album for free also proved how worthless the album format is nowadays thanks to iTunes indomitable ability to sell single MP3 files faster than McDonald’s can spit out beef patties, but in an interview with Billboard, Oseary hinted that Apple and U2 are working on a new formats to consume music too.
