4 ms·

Did they learn nothing from giving everyone a free U2 album that nobody wanted, and the backlash from that?

by jb1991 1y ago

x62Bh7948f 1y ago
It was such a long time ago that the people who made the mistake have already retired, maybe.
- msh 1y ago
  Most of the top management from that time is the same people today.
- abcd_f 1y ago
  U2 stunt was Jobs' idea. He was a life-long fan of them. Edit - it wasn't, my bad, see below.
  - ryandrake 1y ago
    Didn’t the U2 stunt happen three years after Steve Jobs died?
  - latexr 1y ago
    The U2 album happened under Cook. https://www.rnz.de/cms_media/module_img/176/88193_1_detailxs2x_musikfreunde-unter-sich-apple-chef-tim-cook-und-u-2-saenger-bono-fotomonica-davey-archiv.webp https://www.rnz.de/cms_media/module_img/176/88193_1_detailxs...
    - abcd_f 1y ago
      Bah, my bad. This happened in 2014 and Jobs passed in 2011.
JimDabell 1y ago
I think this is a lot worse than the U2 thing. Operating systems bundle free stuff all the time. Even the Windows 95 CD had a Weezer music video on it. The U2 album wasn’t spammy it didn’t interrupt people, it was in an appropriate place, and it was easily removed. Even if you didn’t want it, it’s reasonable to not consider it a problem. This was outright spammy. It was trying to sell people something. It was in a sensitive place. And it was an attention-seeking, interrupting notification. This shouldn’t have even made it onto the drawing board, and for this to make it into production at Apple is a sign something is seriously wrong there.
- daqnz 1y ago
  Completely disagree, for many people it was the only track in iTunes. And when things triggered iTunes to play it played that. I was in an older man’s car last year. It started playing the album. He remarked “oh that always plays, I don’t know why” as I reached for the volume. A decade later that album is still annoying people. Bluetooth triggered play or something like that and the only music on the old iPhone started playing.
  - ryandrake 1y ago
    I’ve met so many people who only have that one album on their devices, and it plays every time they plug into their car or connect via Bluetooth. And they are all just annoyed/accepting of it. My wife was one of them. And what made it worse was you couldn’t just pause it: with her car’s particular head unit, anything you touched (like the volume control) would cause the head unit to issue another “play music” command to restart it. Eventually enough was enough and I figured out how to remove the album for good.
    - jama211 1y ago
      If it annoyed them that much they’d have rung apple support and gotten it removed. I agree it’s bad and they shouldn’t have done it, but after a decade you have to accept some personal responsibility for it, if I bought a shoe and a rock was inside from factory and my foot hurt for 10 years at some point some of your current suffering is your own fault for not removing it lol
    - earthtograndma 1y ago
      If I'm reading all this correctly, it sounds like Apple has a system that will automatically play unintended music at various times from the music library. The only way to prevent this is to completely wipe out the entire library. And the chief complaint is that there is an album in the library.
      - jmathai 1y ago
        Because the presence of that album is what creates this bug and the user never purchased or downloaded it themself. I have this same problem but it plays my wedding playlist from nearly 20 years ago. Some terribly annoying song I no longer like. I assume it’s too much work to delete my library and so I just deal with the annoyance.

Did they learn nothing from giving everyone a free U2 album that nobody wanted, and the backlash from that?

by jb1991 1y ago

Did they learn nothing from giving everyone a free U2 album that nobody wanted, and the backlash from that?

x62Bh7948f 1y ago

It was such a long time ago that the people who made the mistake have already retired, maybe.

msh 1y ago
Most of the top management from that time is the same people today.
abcd_f 1y ago
U2 stunt was Jobs' idea. He was a life-long fan of them. Edit - it wasn't, my bad, see below.
- ryandrake 1y ago
  Didn’t the U2 stunt happen three years after Steve Jobs died?
- latexr 1y ago
  The U2 album happened under Cook. https://www.rnz.de/cms_media/module_img/176/88193_1_detailxs2x_musikfreunde-unter-sich-apple-chef-tim-cook-und-u-2-saenger-bono-fotomonica-davey-archiv.webp https://www.rnz.de/cms_media/module_img/176/88193_1_detailxs...
  - abcd_f 1y ago
    Bah, my bad. This happened in 2014 and Jobs passed in 2011.

JimDabell 1y ago

I think this is a lot worse than the U2 thing. Operating systems bundle free stuff all the time. Even the Windows 95 CD had a Weezer music video on it. The U2 album wasn’t spammy it didn’t interrupt people, it was in an appropriate place, and it was easily removed. Even if you didn’t want it, it’s reasonable to not consider it a problem. This was outright spammy. It was trying to sell people something. It was in a sensitive place. And it was an attention-seeking, interrupting notification. This shouldn’t have even made it onto the drawing board, and for this to make it into production at Apple is a sign something is seriously wrong there.

daqnz 1y ago
Completely disagree, for many people it was the only track in iTunes. And when things triggered iTunes to play it played that. I was in an older man’s car last year. It started playing the album. He remarked “oh that always plays, I don’t know why” as I reached for the volume. A decade later that album is still annoying people. Bluetooth triggered play or something like that and the only music on the old iPhone started playing.
- ryandrake 1y ago
  I’ve met so many people who only have that one album on their devices, and it plays every time they plug into their car or connect via Bluetooth. And they are all just annoyed/accepting of it. My wife was one of them. And what made it worse was you couldn’t just pause it: with her car’s particular head unit, anything you touched (like the volume control) would cause the head unit to issue another “play music” command to restart it. Eventually enough was enough and I figured out how to remove the album for good.
  - jama211 1y ago
    If it annoyed them that much they’d have rung apple support and gotten it removed. I agree it’s bad and they shouldn’t have done it, but after a decade you have to accept some personal responsibility for it, if I bought a shoe and a rock was inside from factory and my foot hurt for 10 years at some point some of your current suffering is your own fault for not removing it lol
  - earthtograndma 1y ago
    If I'm reading all this correctly, it sounds like Apple has a system that will automatically play unintended music at various times from the music library. The only way to prevent this is to completely wipe out the entire library. And the chief complaint is that there is an album in the library.
    - jmathai 1y ago
      Because the presence of that album is what creates this bug and the user never purchased or downloaded it themself. I have this same problem but it plays my wedding playlist from nearly 20 years ago. Some terribly annoying song I no longer like. I assume it’s too much work to delete my library and so I just deal with the annoyance.