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Free U2 Album

A free U2 Album on iTunes. Apple and U2 have grown up together. Steve Jobs incorporated Apple in 1976, the same year that U2 formed at Mount Temple Comprehensive School (Mountjoy) in Dublin. Both thrived on constant reinvention, retaining a loyal audience by delivering pioneering products – the iPhone, and U2’s ever more spectacular live shows.

The 2004 release of a U2-branded iPod first brought them together in a bid to strengthen their grips on the entertainment sector, but now the demise of the traditional record industry has given both middle-aged brands intimations of obsolescence.

Following the relative low sales of their 2009 album No Line on the Horizon, U2 feared that the paying public’s appetite for further releases was in decline. U2 aren’t the only victims – album downloads on Apple’s iTunes store are dwindling as fans turn to streaming services. 

Was the giveaway of Songs of Innocence a success ? Apple said a “record-breaking” 38 million people have already “accessed” the album, far more than would have bought or heard the record normally.

Bono remains unapologetic. He told Time: “We want to get these songs to as many people as we can. We went to Apple and we said ‘We’re not interested in free music – we think music is undervalued. Would you be interested in buying our album and getting it to all 500m of your iTunes accounts?"


Giving Songs of Innocence away makes sense for U2, since the album will act as a promotional tool for their next global tour.

Despite the negative reaction in some quarters, the union between Apple and U2 is set to strengthen. The partners are now embarking on a “secret project” to create a new digital music format which will compensate musicians for their efforts, and aims to revive the dying art of listening to a complete album.

Do it again!

U2’s Mission to Save Music!

For the second time in the band's history, U2 is on the cover of TIME magazine. The September 29, 2014, issue features a black-and-white photo of the band with the headline: The New U2 - The Veteran Rock Band Faces The Future.

Apple and U2 are giving the new album Songs of Innocence to over 500 million iTunes customers worldwide. Never before have so many people owned one album, let alone on the day of its release.

U2 was also on TIME's cover in 1987 when the magazine called the band Rock's Hottest Ticket. And Bono got the cover in 2002 and 2005.

Programming takes time!

One thing people who don't do development don't easily understand is that the time spent doing something repetitively is how you figure out how it works. So when users ask for features that are needed early in the life of a product, for example, where fotodesignarri is now, while I recognize there's a need to simplify and automate the design process for end users, for me as a designer, the repetition of redoing the programming is how I figure out how to address the issue of user enabled web design.

I can't tell you how many times I've programmed quick fixes in the last 30 years, and then had to live with those foolish decisions for years afterwards. Two years later when people ask why it works that foolish way, I have to say it's because I delivered too quickly. I'm now working again on something I've already done half a dozen times over the last two years. This time, I see how to organize it. The other 7 times I was fumbling around in the dark. How long did this take? In this case -- 3 years. But I did wait. So now I'm fairly confident I have the right answer.

Hold on...

Sitting outside a street cafe in Konstanz the other afternoon a street musician (from Budapest as it turned out) with just an accoustic guitar set up and sang a 10 minute version of this REM song even better than Andrea Corr here. An amazing five minute interlude in a busy street.

We all have things going on in our lives that try to drag us down, make us hurt, or tear us apart. But as Winston Churchill said, if you're going through Hell...keep going. To put it another way, the way out is through. Keep your heads up, your hopes high, and never give up no matter how rough the road looks ahead, you'll make it. You are not alone.