\nIt was bound to happen.<\/p>\n

In a world where digital information is cheap, we bandy bits and bytes around like they\u2019re kernels of popcorn inside a giant hot air popper. The bits and bytes, modern currency that trade for news, knowledge, and kitty pics, in and of themselves have no actual value, but how those bits and bytes are strung together determine the usefulness of their existence. They can combine to form a blog post or a nasty tweet. They can become humor or horror. They can morph into a grammatically incorrect meme or they can become music; and apparently, that\u2019s where Apple users draw the line.<\/p>\n

In a \u2018Huh. Will you look at that?\u2019 moment, the world seems upside down and topsy turvy after Apple, the company that can\u2019t seem to stop making pretty stuff, announced its bendy<\/a> new iPhones on September 10^{th<\/sup>. In case you\u2019ve been living off-world, Apple CEO Tim Cook once again attempted and failed at being Steve Jobs, but no one can blame him, for Jobs was an impossible act to follow. Cook got up there and showed the world Apple\u2019s new gear, and up to that point, everything seemed business as usual. Nothing to see here, folks.<\/p>\n}

But then there were reports of broken software<\/a>, broken screens<\/a>, and phones that bring a whole new meaning to butt dialing<\/a>. You\u2019d think those three things would be the real story here for Apple, a company which continues to have a tumultuous ride atop the rollercoaster of broken dreams. Security issues plague the company, with news breaking this week about a flaw in OS X that gives hackers access to more than 18,000 Macs<\/a>. Tales of hacked iPhones and iPads<\/a> are coming out of Hong Kong, where protesters are apparently being spied upon using their own devices. The bash bug<\/a>, which affects all Unix and Linux-based systems, also puts OS X at risk because it\u2019s based on Unix. And one cannot mention Apple and 2014 in the same breath without \u2018nudegate<\/a>,\u2019 the theft of hundreds of nude celebrity photos<\/a> from their iCloud accounts.<\/p>\n

Amid all that, you\u2019d think that nothing else was worth discussing on what is undeniably a crappy year for the big A. But something happened, and it seems to have overshadowed everything mentioned above. Apple gave everybody a free album.<\/p>\n

Not just any old album. Mega group U2\u2019s newest album, Songs of Innocence. And the world went crazy<\/a>. In a US $100 million deal, Apple gave every iTunes user a copy of the album, and how they went about it is just about as spammy as you can get. Users went crazy<\/a>. On a humorous if not distressing note, people flocked to Google to find out just who U2 is. One tweet to Tim Cook asks \u201cmy iPhone has a virus called \u201cU2\u201d how do I uninstall it?\u201d Another states \u201cEveryone’s scared of MI6 and GCHQ accessing our phones, but I’d rather that than be forcibly given a U2 album.\u201d People went out of their way to find out how they could delete the unwanted album from their devices. Social media sentiment for both Apple and U2 plunged<\/a> in the aftermath. Apple was forced to respond with a U2 album removal tool.<\/p>\n

Wired<\/a> calls the debacle \u2018worse than spam.\u2019 And it\u2019s easy to see why, in hindsight, what seemed like a pretty good idea has turned into a punchline for the online world. It isn\u2019t that Apple is out of touch with its users by assuming that everyone with an iPod loves U2. They are, but that\u2019s not the point. It\u2019s the arrogance of the big A, assuming that their brand is different than every other brand out there. That they can do things without asking where others are presumed to be subject to scrutiny. It wasn\u2019t that Apple was wrong in assuming it could become music producer where it should have stuck to making tech devices. It was wrong, but that crime pales in comparison to the breach of trust that Apple caused when it stuck its fingers into the digital libraries of millions of users.<\/p>\n

Wired points out that \u201cthe delivery mechanism amounts to nothing more than spam with forced downloads, and nothing less than a completely indefensible expansion by Apple beyond its operational purview.\u201d Hopefully, Apple has learned a valuable lesson by alienating and distressing so many of its faithful followers, but we can learn something from this, too. Spam is spam, and people are very attuned to anything that slightly reeks of invasion by unwanted messages, software, and now, it seems, music. No matter who you are.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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