U2 iPod: Any Color You Want, As Long As It's Black

dave writes "Forbes is carrying the story that U2 and Apple will be releasing a custom black iPod that comes preloaded with the band's new album as well as portions of the band's 25-year back catalog. The custom iPod will be made available the same week as the new album, which is slated for release in the U.S. November 23rd. The article also talks about the larger deal which included the advertisement for iPod/iTunes and exclusive rights for iTunes to sell the album online for the first few weeks of release." skyshock21 adds a link to this article in Revolution Magazine.

Any color you want

[mikeylebeau]

You could also get your iPod colored however you want from ColorWare [colorwarepc.com].. or buy one pre-colored from them direct. Looks pretty cool.

Re:Black now, full spectrum next

[mikeylebeau]

If you want a shiny black iBook now, just check out ColorWare [colorwarepc.com], they'll do it for you.

Re:U2 live

[Kinryuu]

I saw them circa 1980 . . . . U2 brought their full stadium sound gear.

U2 only played in one stadium before 1983. And they certainly weren't using their own gear at that concert. It was National Stadium in Dublin. Their last show before they were signed by Island Records. They didn't play in any other stadium until the North America leg of the War tour. And I doubt any of their venues during that tour sat 4500. Next time you go to a rock and roll show, maybe you should expect the music to be a little loud, but don't blame U2.

Re:Downhill battle...

[spuke4000]

Check out this link [rollingstone.com], as posted on slashdot a couple of days ago. The bottom of the article has a break down of where the money for a $16 album goes. $1.60 goes to the artist, which when you look at the other costs seems like a 'fair cut' to me.

Re:Another marketing tactic

[RazzleFrog]

Michael Jackson owns the publishing rights to most of the Beatles' library not the actual recordings. He can control (or 50% control with Sony now) who covers the songs and who uses them in ads but he can't control the recordings. For those who don't know there are two copyrights on songs - the recording and the music itself.

Re:Preload gets erased on first use? Huh?

[Farrside]

You can just use a file utility to view Invisible files... the iPod shows up as a hard drive to the rest of the (not iTunes) system, and the music is in an invisible folder. Copy it over to your hard drive and do whatcha like.

Re:Preload gets erased on first use? Huh?

[Stuart Gibson]

There's nothing to stop you adding music to an iPod if you choose not to synchronise it with your iTunes music library. You just need to drag the tracks you want to the iPod icon.

I can see what you mean if someone plugs it in and asks it to synchronise without realising it will erase the current tracks.

Stuart

Re:Preload gets erased on first use? Huh?

[2nd Post!]

You know, iTunes doesn't erase the contents of the hard drive, only the special hidden music folders.

So if the albums were stored on a disk image, say a CD, or multiple CDs, or something, on the drive, they wouldn't get erased unless the user erased them.

And then when they get mounted by the OS, iTunes should be able to recognize them as CDs. Which means that iTunes can also import them. Even if they are mounted as disk images, iTunes can still import them into the library.

So technically there's nothing stopping:
Disk image containing all the songs on the drive (but not in the music folder)
Said disk image automounted when the iPod is plugged in
Said songs on said disk image imported by iTunes automatically (or prompted to at least)
Said library created by iTunes is automatically (unless told otherwise) synched to the iPod

Re:This will be handy

[decepty]

Check the download section @ iPodLounge [ipodlounge.com] and you'll find a number of utilities that allow you to copy tracks FROM your iPod TO your PC / Mac / Fancy Abacus. You could also use a utility like BurnOut (sorry, can't find a link, but I believe it is also @ iPodLounge) and burn CDs directly from your iPod.

Re:Damn thats sexy...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sexy? You want sexy with an iPod?? Here ya go!! [ev1.net] (warning: nsfw)

Hehe. :)

Is this okay with Apple Records?

[cyclobotomy]

Didn't a previous article [macnewsworld.com] previously reported on slashdot [slashdot.org] say that Apple computer is okay selling music as long as it doesn't sell it on a physical medium, so as not to directly compete with the Apple Records?

From MacNewsWorld [macnewsworld.com]:

...one of those passages in the court document strongly implies that Apple Corps agreed to allow Apple (Computer) to pursue digital music initiatives, but not package, sell or distribute any physical music materials such as CDs.

Re:It had to be said...

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you see his user name?

Re:iPod and music piracy...

[Graff]

True, you can use the iPod for something other than music. That's a bit of a niche market at the moment, kind of a "well, I have an iPod anyway, I may as well use it for X" because if they wanted a real portable drive, they'd get one that didn't need special drivers just to copy files OFF it.

The iPod is a regular, standard, mass-storage device. No drivers are needed, it's just plug it in and start using it as a hard drive. I use mine for just this task all the time and I've never needed any sort of special drivers.

Actually, for the price, it is pretty competitive with equivalently-priced, comparably-sized portable hard drives on the market. Add that on to it's capabilities as a music device and other bells and whistles and you have a nice package.

Re:I don't think that's what he says

[Anonymous Coward]

Who says it has to be Spanish?

Well...the reason that many languages have numbers similar to uno, dos, tres, quatro (and words in general) is that they're all romance languages (derived from latin).

Spanish: uno, dos, tres, quatro
French: un, deux, trois, quatre
Italian: uno due, tre, quatro
Portugese: um, dois, tres, quatro
Romanian: unu, doi, trei, patru
Catalan: un, dos, tres, catre
Latin: unus, duos, tres, quattuor

So, unless I'm missing one or more romance languages, then uno-dos-tres-quatro uniquely identifies Spanish.