On September 9th, Apple held the splashy, seat-wetting unveiling of their latest polarizing products, the iPhone 6, the iPhone 6 plus and the brand spanking new Apple Watch. Apple fans and technophiles have been buzzing about the iPhone 6 since the launch of their last gadgets but it was Apple’s “gift” of U2’s latest album, Songs of Innocence, to its touted 500 million plus iTunes customers that divided the masses.
As a publicity stunt, it all worked. The act made headlines (Apple is great at getting attention) and we were talking about Apple and consequently, U2 in the media long after their gadget launch. Was Apple right to give us the gift? Maybe, I love free music, who doesn’t…oh, wait all those people who were angered by a free U2 album. Could Apple have approached this differently? They could certainly have provided a link to the album where we could have chosen to download if we wanted but then they wouldn’t have been able to claim that, for the first time in music history, 500 million users own one album.
Will there always be people willing to complain about anything and everything, free or not? Absolutely, but there’s no such thing as bad publicity. Right, Apple?