Apple Spent Over $100 Million On Your New U2 Album

On stage at Apple's event earlier this week, Bono and Tim Cook shared a moment — or got stuck in a moment, maybe. With their magical finger-touch, 500 million iTunes users got the new U2 album for free. At the same time Apple pushed the album, they may have also transferred a massive lump of cash U2's way.

While millions try to get themselves out of Tim and Bono's moment, U2 is cashing in. According to Billboard, Apple gave up $100 million to launch the album on iTunes. That's in addition to a lump sum paid directly to U2, though nobody knows how much that payment might have been.

U2 can claim Songs of Innocence is the biggest Album of all time. Apple can claim exclusivity for a bit, and the relationship between the two entities grows stronger.

While $100 million (and then some) may seem a massive amount for a single album, Apple is siting on a trove of roughly $150 billion. Their iPhone 6 has already been a bigger hit than anything before it, and the Apple Watch still looms on the horizon.

Music has also become a "stream it or die" commodity, with services like Pandora, Spotify, and Google Play All Access largely killing off album sales. Apple's iTunes is the lone holdout, and judging by the reaction many had to the album showing up in their iTunes accounts, U2's Songs of Innocence should maybe be the last album Apple concentrates so heavily on.

Source: Billboard