I’ve often said that Bono is the Irish Lenny Kravitz, only that’s not fair to Lenny Kravitz, since “It Ain’t Over Til It’s Over” is pretty catchy and Lenny Kravitz isn’t a shill for neoliberal asshole idiots.
How the fuck did U2 songs end up on my iPhone? Can someone explain this? I saw jokes about it on Twitter but I don’t understand.
Not to get all mistermix on you, but should we all ditch Apple over this?
Update. I’m too depressed about the ISIS/ISIL 9/11 style mania to check in on Obama’s speech (not out of distrust out Obama, but the whole establishment media atmosphere is upsettingly stupid).
JPL
haha.. I’m having a meltdown that the Pres is making deals with Saudi and you are worried about PC vs Apple..
Life goes on…
Dog On Porch
Don Ameche owned a phone. You’re referring to a hand held computer. Two different instruments altogether.
Davis X. Machina
@JPL: Every president since Hoover has made deals with Saudi.
Baud
Saw the title and I thought this was going to be a post about General Stuck. Miss that guy.
JPL
@Baud: Me too!
MomSense
@Baud:
I miss him, too.
Redshift
@Dog On Porch: Bah! You can’t “dial” a phone if it doesn’t have a dial, and it can’t ring if it doesn’t have a mechanical bell! We haven’t had phones since they started putting circuit boards in them in the 60s, just electronic gadgets!
PsiFighter37
I think U2 gave away their new album for free in conjunction with the release of the iPhone 6. I don’t give two shits…if it’s free, why complain?
Cannot wait to order my 6+, for what it’s worth. Or getting a phone that works all the time, consistently (I’ve been subsisting off a bent iPhone that I lost in the streets of NoMad for several hours back in March 2013).
Mike E
With or without you, DougJ.
JPL
@MomSense: It was nice that his sister stopped by to thank us. Her brother was really special and a lot of us miss him. When I see a hummingbird, I still think about his pictures.
Marmot
Dude, never leave me again.
WereBear
@JPL: And to let us know Charlie was okay.
JPL
@WereBear: Yup!
Dog On Porch
@Redshift: “If I want to talk to somebody, by jingo I just open my window and shout”!
WaterGirl
@JPL: I must have missed that, what did Stuck’s sited stop by to thank us?
I too, cannot see a hummingbird photo without thinking of General Stuck. I also can’t think about him without tearing up.
Comrade Mary
My iTunes account told me that it was already “purchased” for me, but that I’d have to go to the cloud to download the tracks. Nuh-uh.
So if your phone has the songs already, you have a way too easy relationship with the cloud. So dangerous! Bet there are some Bono nude selfies heading your way right now. (Larry Mullen nude selfies can be downloaded only to the 6+).
PaulW
The new U2 album was an automatic purchase for anyone (500 million!) with an iTunes store account, so you may have gotten them downloaded direct to yourself without even trying.
Southern Beale
Apple made it available free to everyone. I actually like U2’s music so of course I’m fine with getting free tunes but having it just show up on my iTunes is a little creepy.
PaulW
By the way, the U2 album isn’t really free: Apple merely paid the band $100 million to allow for 500 million downloads of it.
Corner Stone
What the everloving fuck is Obama even doing giving this a prime time address?
It’s like talking about a crew of meth head bank robbers who killed a security guard and stole some kid’s fucking scooter.
This is pathetic.
Warren Terra
The 20ish Apple fanboy intern working with me explained that iTunes was giving away a new U2 album that was exclusive to iTunes … on the one hand, none of his peers have the remotest interest in U2, but on the other hand he understands the marketing power of nostalgia and he concedes that none of his peers pay to download music (though apparently everyone uses a subscription service, including downloaded music used within the context of an active subscription, at an incredibly cheap student rate).
MomSense
@JPL:
I didn’t know his sister stopped by. I “met” him at another blog where he was really supportive to women who had been bullied and then found out about b-j through him.
The pictures of hummingbirds were fantastic. I have had many experiences with hummingbirds in my gardens over the years so his love of hummingbirds was a sort of confirmation of a kindred spirit.
Wonder how his pup is doing.
Warren Terra
@PaulW:
You’re right! I hadn’t thought to check, as I use my iPod to listen to podcasts and radio I’ve downloaded to it, and almost never to music. But, there the album is!
JPL
@WaterGirl: It was within a few days after John found out he died. She thanked us, let us know about Charlie. Now I’m tearing up, but she understood why he commented here.
Jewish Steel
The Unforgettable Barf
Mike in NC
@Corner Stone: But ISIS is 100 times more evil and powerful than Hitler’s SS! We need to hide under our beds until the all-clear siren.
DougJ
@Jewish Steel:
Worse than Clapton or no? I say yes, I like Lay Down Sally and Bell Bottom Blues.
WaterGirl
@JPL: So she stopped by Balloon Juice to thank us? That was right in the middle of all the months of repairs after the tree crashed on my house, and I was hardly on BJ at all.
I think it’s interesting, though, that after weeks of not checking in at BJ at all, I looked at balloon juice just minutes after Cole posted the terrible news about Tunch and we had the sad confirmation about General Stuck. It must have been the disturbance in the force that led me to balloon juice on that day of all days.
I would love to see what she wrote. Oh Steeplejack, master of Google, where are you?
JPL
@Mike in NC: Actually, I had to hide under my desk but it was cuz of the commies. Duck and cover.
WaterGirl
@PaulW: I bought City of Blinding Lights when I returned home from all my travels volunteering for Obama in late 2007 and early 2008. I really bonded with that from working all the rallies where that was the song they played.
I heard it while shopping at the grocery store the other day, and the song took me right back in time. Still.
Comrade Mary
@Warren Terra: WTF it’s on my phone, too, even though it never made it to my desktop copy of iTunes. I don’t have a cloud account, either. Fuckers!
EDIT: KIND of on my phone: the track listing is there, but the little cloud icon is next to each one requiring a click to actually download. I still feel violated.
EDIT2: Got it figured out. Every iTunes music purchase is on my phone, even though I never deliberately chose to bring over most of them. I never thought anything of it because I chose to buy those. Having placeholders for this unwanted purchase just feels invasive.
Hal
@PaulW:
Whaaa??? Why?! Did jobs leave this in his will?
Warren Terra
@Comrade Mary:
Yeah, I’ve got that same icon in my desktop copy of iTunes. I haven’t looked on my iPod at all.
PaulW
@Hal:
No, it’s that Apple has enough f-cking money to indulge in getting a stadium-sellout-popular band like U2 to provide a downloadable album during the same day they release new Apple products as part of a marketing blitz.
MomSense
@WaterGirl:
I just remember frantically collecting all the cards as the end of rally soundtrack played. And then of course–entering the data and then calling all of them!!
browser
Also, Bono would never be cool enough to do this:
youtube.com/watch?v=SBgZNINN6MU
PJ
Relax. The only way U2 songs ended up on your phone is if you loaded them onto it. The new album is listed on your device if you have activated the switch which shows you every song you ever downloaded or purchased from the iTunes store, but to actually listen to the songs and store them on your device, you have to go to iTunes and click the button to download them.
PJ
@Comrade Mary: You can just turn off the switch which shows your iTunes purchases and never have to see it again.
Steeplejack
@WaterGirl:
There are a couple of comments from Stuck’s sister in this thread—here and a repeat a couple of comments later. I believe that was the first (and maybe only) time she appeared at Balloon Juice.
My memory is that the information about Charlie was given earlier by a third party, in this thread. I haven’t been able to track down anything else. Going out to dinner, might try again later.
Origuy
There used to be something called the National Computer Conference. I went in 1980 when it was in Anaheim. Apple bought out Disneyland on Tuesday night of the conference. Kind of strange seeing it with so few people, only a few thousand.
delosgatos
Fwiw, Our neighbor who works at Apple said Bono was the show closer at the company party for the iPhone 6 yesterday.
WaterGirl
@Steeplejack: Thanks, Steeplejack! I read the July post at the time, I think that was the same day as Tunch. :: wiping tears away ::
I had never seen the sister’s comments so I really appreciate the link.
Thymezone
Doug, we’re at war. Get your ass back here and start posting every day.
That is all.
Sondra
As a horsey person, I’m too low tech to understand how iphones work.
But I will say this: the other day I went with my friend to have an MRI done on her 18 month old baby. It was an ordeal for him so I went to the iphone looking for classical music to sooth him.
I managed to find the Al Jareau network so I played that for the baby and he loved it. I never did find the Mozart which is recommended for babies. I guess he’s a jazz baby. Who knew?
Tripod
You have nothing to lose but your chains.
Matt McIrvin
The Mozart Effect is nonsense, anyway!
It all rests on one experiment in 1993 that had to do with the short-term effect of various sounds on adults’ ability to carry out spatial reasoning tasks. It wasn’t about babies or child development at all, and they were comparing a Mozart piece, a verbal relaxation tape, and silence; there was no other music.
So feel free to play Al Jarreau.