In Apple’s event on 9 September 2014, Apple announced that everyone gets U2’s new album for free. Personally I’m not a fan of U2, but I think U2 fans might be happy with Apple’s free gift.
Later on the day, I read news that U2 songs are being pushed by Apple for some iPhone users. What’s the meaning of being pushed? It means some people suddenly got U2 songs in their iPhone without doing anything. If someone is not a fan of U2 and was not aware of Apple’s September Event, he might got confused.
First, how come some people get those songs automatically and some others don’t even have that problem? The answer lies in some iPhone settings. If we go to Settings > iTunes & App Store > Automatic Downloads > Music and have the switch turned on, it means that every new music we purchased (from any device) will be automatically downloaded to the devices with this setting on. Usually when Apple makes something free, they set “free” as the price of that something (songs, apps, books, etc). This time, Apple did something different. Instead of making U2 latest album free, they went ahead by setting that EVERYONE already has the album purchased. As a result, the normal behavior of automatic download works with this album, even the iPhone owner never do any purchase.
As another side effect, there is another setting in Settings > Music > Show All Music. If the switch is on, then the new “purchased” songs will appear in our song list, even they might not get automatically downloaded, depending on the iTunes & App Store settings. If we play undownloaded song, it will stream the song from Apple server, using our mobile data if we don’t have WiFi connection when listening to the music.
Now the big question: how to delete those U2’s songs from our iPhones?
Simple. Open Music app, click on Artists tab and select U2. It will display album(s) and song(s) from U2. To delete a song, do a swipe on the song title. Swipe to the left. And a red Delete button will appear.
There are two methods to prevent this song from appearing in our music library and trigger unwanted music streaming. First, if you don’t use iCloud music streaming at all, you might want to consider to turn off the Show All Music setting as explained above. Second, if you do need iCloud music streaming for music you actually like, then open iTunes in desktop computer, make sure you are logged in to your Apple ID, go to iTunes Store, find a section called “Quick Links” on the right and click on the link called Purchased. Find the U2’s new album there. There should be a small x button on the upper left side of the album art. Click on the x button to hide that “forced purchase”.
Bad move, Apple. It’s great to give something for free, but it’s bad to force everyone to get the free gift.
Update 16 September 2014: Apple has created a tool to delete U2’s Songs of Innocence album. Simply go to www.itunes.com/soi-remove and press one simple button there. We can still “repurchase” the album for free until 13 October 2014.
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