I don't really care.
There's so much going on my own life, not to mention the real world, I could care less if my favourite band wants to distribute their music this way. That's all I see it as, a new means of distributing music.
I-tunes, is not the only online music store that has U2 songs in their databases.
I've come across a few articles about this, bands make very little from CD's, it's touring, especially merchandise, that is the biggest money maker.
The U2 Ipod, to me, no different than a t-shirt with U2 on it. What's the difference? U2 do have a company that makes their own official shirts. Apple makes a device that plays music files, and have a way to sell the files.
Green Day were called sell-outs for being signed to a big label. Every band, at some point or another, is going to "sell out" in someone's opinion.
I have news for you, vinyls, are still made, my sister has a vinyl of Eminem's last album, even cassettes are still around, but you can make cassette versions off CD's, so there's no real market to make cassette's anymore. CD's aren't going anywhere, not everyone has an mp3 player, it's not like U2 are going to stop releasing physical copies of their recordings, they're just staying ahead of the game, as others have said. If they do stop making physical hard copies, then I'll be upset, but they're not foolish enough, nor their record company, to completely abandon CD's for mp3s.
I'm reminded of something Bill Flanagan wrote, about U2 in the early 90's, U2 managed to stay ahead of the pack, and be on the cutting edge of music, while their peers didn't.
It's all about the music, that's why I like U2, they haven't compromised their musical integrity. On most versions of HTDAAB, the last track is called "Yahweh." In a climate that can quite hostile towards such things, it takes guts to do that.
Bono could write songs about whatever he wants at this point, but look at what's on his mind, his late father, God, love...how do you dismantle an atomic bomb...with love.
I have no use for an I-pod at the moment, U2-themed or otherwise, I don't have the patience to wait to download songs, and I'd probably get burned out with the music I have. With CD's, I can pace listening to them, if I had access to all the songs I have on all my CD's, sheesh, I'd get burned out at some point, even if I did rotate.