The Edge: Lots of people, including me, don’t read the instructions. When you select automatic download on iOS, you’re signing up to be pushed free content. It’s not exactly small print, it’s just a box you tick or don’t. I understand how and why people got annoyed. But really, with all that’s going on in the world. . .come on. Apple and U2 were genuine about this whole thing. Apple were being generous and we were trying to do something different to get through the noise.
My understanding, and someone please correct me if I'm wrong, is that the mistake the band made wasn't in misreading how people would take having the album forced on them. Or forced on them so long as they had auto download checked, as Edge was correct in qualifying. Rather, I thought, from reading Bono's remarks in the same interview, that they intended from the get go to make it an OPTION to download for free and some mix up or error by APPLE pushed it to the auto download category. The only reason I remember Bono's remarks was he made an analogy- something to the effect of "we meant to say the milk is on the door step, when actually, the milk was in the middle of your kitchen floor."
So the mistake we are debating becomes much more complicated and open to interpretation and discussion if we look at it like that. Of course, it was a disaster that SOI auto downloaded and required the jaws of life to remove from your IPHONE. But the band didn't mean for that to happen.
So the question in my mind is "was it a good or bad idea to offer the download for free through Apple?"
In my mind, it was a good idea, and the auto download debacle and the lead single choice is what sent the ship into the rocks. Far more the auto download- not the band's intent- than the single- the band's poor choice.
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