Tim Cook and U2 announced that the band’s new album “Songs of Innocence” would be automatically gifted to Apple’s over 500 million iTunes users last week following the announcement of the new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, but many iTunes users were not happy with seeing music from U2 added to their iTunes libraries (even for free).
While iTunes supports a way to “hide” previous purchases, the complaints and confusion apparently grew loud enough to warrant a dedicated support site for permanently removing the free U2 album from iTunes purchase history. Apple says once you remove the free album from your iTunes purchase history and library, you will need to “get it again” if you decide you want it. The U2 album is available for free until October 13th next month when the album will then be available for sale at various retailers. View below for information on how to remove the free U2 album…
It was reported last week that 2 million of the more than 500 million iTunes users downloaded the free U2 album, although it was unclear how much of a factor automatic downloads and iTunes Radio streaming played into that (somewhat low) number.
To remove this album:
- Go to http://itunes.com/soi-remove.
- Click Remove Album to confirm you’d like to remove the album from your account.
- Sign in with the Apple ID and password you use to buy from the iTunes Store.
- You’ll see a confirmation message that the album has been removed from your account.
If you downloaded the songs to iTunes on your Mac or PC or to the Music app on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, you’ll need to delete them manually.
The public reaction to having U2’s album available automatically for free directly in customers’ iTunes libraries seemed to surprise Apple as the company pushed the complimentary album with an email campaign and even a new ad seen below.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXJz3C12bWs]
While the U2 album is free for customers through mid-October, it came at quite a high cost for Apple (not just counting the public reaction). The New York Times reported last week that Apple paid for more than $100M for the rights the release the album for iTunes customers, and it sounds like the iPhone maker has more plans with U2 slated for the future.
Update: A little damage control after the SOI removal tool debut? Apple SVP Eddy Cue tells Mashable that 33 million people have “experienced” Songs of Innocence using iTunes, iTunes Radio, or Beats Music.
“Just six days after its release on iTunes, a record breaking 33 million people have already experienced the album,” Eddy Cue, Apple’s SVP of Internet Software and Services, said in a statement to Mashable. When asked what “experienced the album” means, an Apple spokesperson clarified that it means “listened to it” — either on iTunes, iTunes Radio or Beats Music.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
Imagine being in a band that can’t even give your newest album away for free
Imagine being a commenter on a website who said “everyone will like getting this!” Just like so many here who, again, we’re myopic and wrong.
Another APPLE FAIL.
I wouldn’t say it was anyone’s fail. Obviously everyone doesn’t like U2 so there were bound to be people that didn’t want and wouldn’t listen to it. Personally, I think it was a great gesture on Apple’s part to partner with a band that a lot of people do like and provide something for free.
Perhaps next time they’ll put it in the “Free on iTunes” section of iTunes so people can make up their own minds. People who are whining: Just delete the thing and go on with your lives. Everything is going to be ok.
listen the song “Every breaking wave” and will no longer be an APPLE FAIL …
APPLE IS DOOMED!! LOL “another Apple fail”… (eye roll)
Chairman Lee Kun Hee is trying to reach you herb. He says you’re embarrassing your team.
Iphonic:
No one is trying to reach you.
Loser.
Haha, herb you’re so out of point. Have you seen those 6 crap ads that shamesung made in short amount of days from announcing iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus? Those were FAIL! Shows how scared they are because they’ll be extinct in 1 – 2 years.
Interesting update as of June, 2015… Adding to not being allowed to delete an album that was put there without customer permission on ITunes Account. When trying to delete a pop up window would appear saying that the process could not be completed until the account owner signed a new agreement with Apple, the new agreement was they would not be liable for any indecent material that showed up on ITunes Accounts that was put there without permission….(hoping this is not their new agenda). Gulf Coast Gal
People will always find a reason to complain, no matter how silly the problem.
Did you listen to the album?
Yep. U2 FAIL, too.
The album is great and it’s great for Apple to give it away for free.
But people who have such a big problem with a free album appearing in their music list (but not taking up any actual space on their device if they don’t download it from iCloud) really should be shipped off to Liberia for a few months. Pathetic.
That’s dumb. This album is actually pretty good!
Good for you!
Some people like getting spam, too.
Especially if they need pills for their erections.
Im guessing based on your never ending foul mood, that you are one of those people….
Funny, Chris.
No, but if I do I’ll ask you for some recommendations!
@herb02135go so we can be clear here, EVERY post you make is spam, if only deleting you was as easy, at least Apple gave us the option, can we have an option to get rid of you as well please… ;)
Spam would be if I was going to your email or account.
This is not spam because my messages are going to a website you visit that invites comments.
Plus, check out the number of comments on threads to which I contribute to those that I don’t.
Websites are all about clicks.
I believe you mean he’s trolling not spamming
Is there a way to do this will other music purchases?
it pretty much came down to $5 per iTunes account. I would have rather get a $5 credit to use toward something on iTunes. Nothing against U2, just not a fan.
Or maybe even some older U2?
Would be nice if U2 were banned outright. Not a loss for anyone.
No one should ever underestimate the number of people out there with bad taste, even if they happen to buy Apple products.
Apple products are for people who lack the ability to think different. Ironic.
Thinking independently is more important. I won’t be a sheep to your way of thinking. I independently like Apple products.
Ironically you are not asking people to think differently. You are asking them to think the same way as you.
I agree, people who enjoy U2 have horrible taste.
I love U2, and I am really thankful to receive the new album free. But forcing it on everyone, nah, that’s not good. Just send everyone an email or an iMessage with a code to download it. Then it would have been even cooler actually.
And Apple, how come you don’t use iMessage to reach your users? Kinda odd that you don’t.
Yep. That’s how the company should have done it.
I guess it figured the sheep would follow.
Lee Kun Hee likes your sheep reference. Reminds him of how little he’s paying sheep like you to post on behalf of Samsung. Which herbs do you cook your sheep with?
Apple was actually wise not to send links via email or imessage. Phishers could then mimic the appearance and highly increase the click-rate based on people remembering “oh yeah, Apple does send us links this way”
And get their naked selfies exposed.
Oh wait, that already happened.
Wow, just wow. Some people really need to be forced to live in a 3rd world country for a while.
Is kind of surprising how a company as big and resourceful as Apple do this kind of blunders, Maps, iOS7 UI and now this. I love U2 (the first 4 Albums) and I’m grateful Apple gave this for free, at least much better than other pop and hip hop crap they have given away before.
WOW. What a sad day! Doesn’t matter what you think of the band or the album. It was free for you to listen to or not. It’s nice and refreshing when big companies give things out for free. This wasn’t a toy in a cereal box. This was somebodies work and passion. A money maker and something substantial. Be happy you got something just for the sake of being apart of the apple community. Stop the hate and the complaining just to complain, my God. Open your ears and minds if it not for you then it’s not for you but don’t kill it for everyone else and kill the ideas of free things. You could be killing something that’s free in the future that u personally want but now Apple will say, forget it! Ungrateful!!!!!!!! There’s tons of artists that are not my cup of tea. I respect them and they are not bad or dead or forgotten. They are talented musicians that just aren’t my interest. You better believe I would take an album that was offered for free as well as give it a listen to broaden my musical knowledge. Great job Apple and U2. Thank you for your generosity and I’m sorry on behalf of all the people that obviously can have no thanks towards a gift. The alum was great as well. To be honest liked U2 when they started and a bit mid career then I kinda forgot about them. This new album shows some great energy and has a great sound. I love it! Thanks again and c’mon people open your hearts and ears as well as you minds.
Very well said 👍
WRONG.
Offer customers the opportunity to acquire it free-of-charge.
Don’t spam them with it. Arrogant Apple’s action was 100 times worse than any spammer. Spam can simply be deleted; getting rid of SoI forced Apples customers (the folk who pay their wages) to jump thro’ hoops.
My guess is this was a stunt for U2 to play fast and lose with album “sales” data.
If this was Samsung that did this all of you would be all over them.
Honestly… I’d like to see April Fools next year have every Apple article where Apple has egg on their faces switched to Samsung and just see how everyone reacts. If Apple were a person and murdered someone most of the people on here would say stuff like “well, I bet that person was bad!” and “well, what did they do to Apple?”
I think people are overreacting as usual. I can say my love of the band has diminished over the years but I appreciated the opportunity to have it for free. If you don’t like the new album then don’t listen to it. I don’t understand why people have to make such a big deal about it when many of us complain how nothing is free in this world. Apple just proved all of them wrong.
There is a cost.
As one poster said, why not give consumers a choice? Or maybe a credit in the amount the company spent?
Samsung isn’t paying you enough to vomit their BS all over this article. You lack both originality and rationality of thought.
I don’t support Bono and all of his socialist views, I will not support him in any way.
I don’t support you and all your fascist views…but I agree that U2 is horrible.
Clearly everything is NOT better when it’s free. Strange…
The new U2 album is not great, it’s very generic, but I didn’t think it was so loathsome as to evoke the reaction that is playing out. Personally, I wouldn’t have paid money for it, but for free why not?
You’re also under absolutely no obligation to download it. It would have just sat up in the cloud forever. Maybe that was the bit that could have been better explained.
Only the biggest music coup of 2014, but because Apple is involved, the haters gotta hate. The trolling on this is insane, but I guess people have to find some way to wile away the hours typing into their generic PC’s wearing their skivvies in their parents basements. :P
I don’t like U2. Just not my type of music. I can understand not wanting to see that album there ready to stream, all the time.
U2 needed this to work. In this day and age it’s an act of desparation. It’s not a fault of Apple, but they should have given the opportunity for people to download it, rather than making the automatic assumption that every one of the 500 miliion wanted a copy of the album. I was one that didn’t. i lost faith in U2 at The Joshua Tree.
“A mole, Digging in a hole, Digging up my soul now, Going down, excavation” is not good Bono, especially after “Broken bottles under children’s feet, Bodies strewn across the dead end street, But I won’t heed the battle call, It puts my back up, Puts my back up against the wall”
AND ESPECIALLY as they are all “don’t cheat the artist of their money”, when the single of this specific album, is all about getting into The Ramones gig for free.
Too much?
Seriously?
First, this was APPLE, not U2; Apple gave U2 100 million bucks for what could be 500 million copies. I’ll let you do the math as to how much they could make a copy, should enough downloads happen. At this point U2 is a band that does not need to prove anything. In fact, the band, and several generations of their descendants, are set financially even if they never recorded another song.
And yeah, so they did something less than legal as teenagers. In the 1970’s. That means they were young and stupid, just as we all were at one time. That doesn’t invalidate the concept of “not stealing”.
Honestly shocked at the nasty response this got. So much for generosity toward customers. Next time they should make it available for free and let people choose to get it.
Can I also invoice Apple for the wasted mobile data downloading the album I didn’t want?
You mean, the bandwidth expended when you clicked on the icon to download the album from the cloud to your device? Not bloody likely.
When i listen to my library on shuffle, itunes downloaded the tracks to play them, because they were in my library but not on the device.
I know there’s nothing i can do about it, but that doesn’t make it ok.
I really enjoyed the gift and and the whole album, thanks so much Apple. I understand it could be managed in a different way, instead of inserting the U2 music in your iCloud. For me was okay but of course not everybody thinks the same..
What record did it break?
Most angry customers?
Apple-U2fail
Very few angry customers. More of U2 haters. It’s free and also easily able to be deleted if you don’t want it. In a world whete nothing’s free, this is so comical! Example….. U all get a free car. I don’t like that brand how dare they give aeay a car. That’s spam. Lmfao. Wake up haters. The world is laughing at you and you lost. Ur pathetic and a waste of space.
Your analogy is wrong.
The car would have to be parked in your garage for it to be “spam.”
It wasn’t a case where Apple said “come and get it” otherwise it wouldn’t have to give instructions on how to delete it.
You clearly don’t get it.
Shame on Apple.
Wow. Not everyone likes U2, Yoohoo, YouTube or Yahoo. I listened and disliked it and removed the album. Wasn’t that big of a deal. SAD thing is millions of idiots don’t know how to hide unwanted downloads. That’s all the website does. It’s still in your iTunes but its hidden. Not permanently deleted. Sorry people. Apple, Google/Android and Windows still keeps tabs on us all.
This is literately the dumbest First World problem I’ve rad about in some time. Oh, and 100 mil for the album? Lint littered pocket change for Apple, they’re sitting on 15 billion or more in cash and who knows how much more in offshore corporate investments (legal tax dodges us lowbrow folks do not have access to) so they’ll be aiight.
REDUNDANT PHRASE:
Using “tool,” Apple and U2 in the same headline.
“Just six days after its release on iTunes, a record breaking 33 million people have already experienced the album,” Eddy Cue, Apple’s SVP of Internet Software and Services, said in a statement to Mashable. When asked what “experienced the album” means, an Apple spokesperson clarified that it means “listened to it” — either on iTunes, iTunes Radio or Beats Music.
Why didn’t Mr Cue just say ‘listened’ in the first place, rather than using jargon?!
For some reason, the complaints bring to mind the opening joke from Annie Hall: Two elderly women are at a resort and one says “The food here is terrible” and the other replies “I know. And such small portions!”
But at least the women didn’t have the food forced on them.
Great movie.
“I used to be a hero in addict. Now I’m a methodone addict.”
Automatically downloaded… Listened … Pretty awful … Will be removing it when I get around to it
I’m a little surprised that they didn’t do it more like the 12 days of christmas gifts, where you can choose to download it or not. Although I don’t mind the album and I’m happy it was free.
That said, there were some freebies in the past that needed to get removed from my purchase history, luckily I already know how to do that. One was a bundle of country songs, and the other was a five-pack of religious christmas tracks that they gave away one year. I didn’t complain to apple that I got them for free; I just hid them and now they’re gone. easy peasy.
I find it awfully difficult to understand how rude and ungrateful people can be when presented with a free gift.
They should track how many people opt-out of the album lol
Reblogged this on Mattic's Fact and Fiction and commented:
this is y i dont update my iphone lol
This has nothing to do with updating your phone, dummy.
Somehow tech has taken the place that music used to occupy in the culture. As a VC, I have mixed feelings – http://bit.ly/appleu2
I can’t stand U2, don’t like their music, nor do I like their political views being shoved in my face. I think Bono is an idiot, and so full of himself it is stupid. I had their new recording installed in my iphone, ipad, and on my computer without my consent, or knowledge. It is not just a “delete the recordings, and be done with it” thing. It’s not that easy for me to do that. I feel this is an invasion of my privacy. Just my opinion.
“Music Preference” is a very Personal thing. This move is so unbelievably INVASIVE, and poorly thought out. I am furious with Apple. What else are they doing???
I personally love this album.
I love how every song sounds the same!
Nobody want a U2 even it is free xD Now blame the piracy Bono
I am not a fan of U2 and found the give away quite presumptuous for Apple to assume that everyone would like or want it. This is a huge invasion of privacy!!!!!!
How exactly was it an “invasion of privacy”?
What information did Apple (or anyone else) get from you by pushing U2 down your throat?
Nothing!
But I do agree with what you were TRYING to say, i.e. Apple should have asked us first, not just do it.
I didn’t even dl it from the Cloud, but I don’t get a choice in NOT listening to it, b/c it plays anyway on my iPhone. In fact, I had no music in there and then randomly one day found all of these U2 songs in there, and genuinely thought my phone was hacked somehow, and these songs were infected. Then, I read the article on AP, and it all became clear for me.
I appreciate the gesture, but it treats the consumer like an incapable sheep that can’t decide for themselves to dl the album for free in the iTunes store, which I would have chose NOT to do, even though the songs aren’t so bad. When they were all in a room deciding this, they must have brought up a picture of me–the consumer who would never listen to U2 willingly, but hey, when they listen, they’ll agree it’s not that bad. But even if it is free, I don’t want it! Not that bad is not good enough to be in my music collection.
It was made this way, including the jumping of hoops to remove the album, as a reason to spout crazy figures of “consumers experiencing the album,” but how many that experienced this album had their day made better for it? The obnoxious unbalance of the reporting is another negative facet of this experiment.
To write off peps who are disgruntled by this as a Samsung lover, somebody whining of a First-World problem: don’t invalidate my point of view. The point is the patronizing of the consumer. I do acknowledge the thought that went into it, motivated by the complete upheaval in the music industry from the rampant piracy that has affected sales, from the zealous wield over musical artists held by the money-making record labels and their unwillingness to innovate or deal effectively with this new reality, but Apple+U2 method is a no-go for me. I mean, come on Apple. You already have this reputation of thinking of your consumers simultaneously as intelligent and unintelligent–don’t insult my intelligence. Even if the album for free is by an artist that I actually appreciate, you should very nicely include an easy methodology for removing it.
You weren’t forced to listen to it and Apple didn’t automatically download it to your phone. You obviously consented to automatic music downloads by activating it in Settings, which puts the blame squarely on you.
It’s very easy to get rid of, but people are just too lazy to learn how to use their phone.
I don’t mean to sound like a douche, but you’re quite wrong in your assumptions here.
iDevices are set to “ON” by default in automatic music downloads, so roar.kitty is quite right when he said he didn’t ask for it.
So the blame isn’t on him, but on Apple.
Luckily I had mine set to off, so I wasn’t spammed with U2 tripe.
Furthermore, this kind of thing, should have been a kind of:
“Heres a free album, but you must click this link in order to download it to your iDevice”
Nope, that’s just wrong. Automatic downloads are OFF by default. That’s how it’s been on every device I’ve owned.
Hmm, I could have sworn mine was off by default.
When I get the iPhone 6S+ then I’ll check it straight out the box next year :)
I meant on by default.
I and most of my friends who got this free from Apple think 95% of the album is garbage. Very sad to admit as we’re all big U2 fans and have been for decades. I might be deleting so thanks for the info!
U2 is a latter-day equivalent of the 1910 Fruitgum Company, and Bozo is quite possibly the smarmiest asshole this side of John Boehner. Edge is a failure as a guitarist (anyone that dependent on his delay pedal is a failure). I’d like to hear him with a Tele and a Tweed Deluxe and see how he sounds. Jerks.
Its driving me crazy now anytime i want to play my spotify music in my car via bluetooth this album takes over my bluetooth. Cant play my music anymore and it always displays the silly album cover to the point that I think I hate U2 now and apple annoys me.
having listen to some of the first track I can under stand why it was for free.
I object very stongly to having Apple put an unwanted, unpurchased U2 album on my iPhone. I can’t even get rid of it. I don’t like U2 and have not and never will purchase any of their music. I am very ANGRY!
I swear, I could not get this shitty music and its accompanying free Gay AF cover art off my phone. Finally after an hour of internet research and several youtube videos it’s removed. Hooray! And it’s not like I have anything against gays- but do I have to have a homoerotic softcore porn photo of some dude about to gobble some other dude as what I see when I turn on my phone? WTF Apple.. Plus this album is about the shittiest thing I have ever heard. Well, it’s a tie with a Shonen Knife album I heard once. But nobody forced me to have that one on my phone.
Uhh what? This is two years old. And the album art is in no way gay or pornographic. You’ve clearly been living in a cave until now.
2 years and people are still feeling the consequences.