Yes, it's the annual lemming jamboree as Apple corrals the gullible into fantasising, fetishizing and fulminating about their latest piece of kit

Apple CEO Tim Cook (L) greets the crowd with U2 singer Bono (R) as The Edge looks on during an Apple special event at the Flint Center for the Performing Arts

Bono gestures to the audience after performing at an Apple event at the Flint Center in Cupertino, California

THE highly anticipated new U2 album is being offered as a free download to the almost half billion Apple iTunes users around the world - but the band is still getting paid.

The band's latest studio album Songs Of Innocence was released yesterday - just after the band had performed a new song as part of the finale of Apple's product announcement event in California.

It will be released physically by Island Records on 13th October, 2014.

But, until then, it will be available to up to 500m customers in 119 in what Apple CEO Tim Cook described as 'the largest album release of all time'

And according to the 'New York Times', Apple paid the band and Universal an unspecified fee as a blanket royalty and committed to a marketing campaign for the band worth up to $100 million in order to release the album 'for free'

That marketing will include a global television campaign, the first piece of which was a commercial that was shown during the event.

The album deals with themes of home and family, relationships and discovery and was recorded in Dublin, London, New York and Los Angeles and is produced by Danger Mouse, along with Paul Epworth, Ryan Tedder, Declan Gaffney and Flood.

As is a decades-old tradition, Dave Fanning got the first play of the record on his RTE 2FM show yesterday evening

The album is the band's first release of new music since 2009.

For what Apple said were up to 500 million customers in 119 countries, “Songs of Innocence” simply appeared in their iTunes accounts on Tuesday afternoon. But the deal that led to ground-breaking release was carefully negotiated between U2 and "some of the most powerful entities in music", according to the New York Times - including Apple; Universal, the band’s label; and Guy Oseary, U2’s new manager. Mr. Oseary works in the management division of Live Nation Entertainment, the global concert conglomerate.

“This is a gift from Apple to their customers,” Mr. Oseary said. “They bought it and they are giving it away.”

Apple and U2 have had a close association going back at least a decade, when Apple introduced a U2-themed iPod.

Online Editors