Here’s How to Get That U2 Album Off Your iPhone

We were all curious to see what Apple CEO Tim Cook’s response to the iCloud security breaches of two weeks ago would be, and it looks like we now have our answer: Hijack each one of our accounts and add the new U2 album to our libraries.

Wait. What?

“Hello hello,” Apple! If you don’t mind, we’d like to pick our own music to purchase from iTunes, free or not!

It’s true. During the company’s iPhone and Apple Watch event Tuesday, Cook was joined on stage by the band and explained that the collection of 11 songs, which you know by now is titled Songs of Innocence, would be “going out for free” on iTunes. What wasn’t explained at the time was that it would be gifted to us whether we liked it or not and be a son of a gun to get rid of if we didn’t feel like looking at it on our iPhones.

But don’t worry. You do in fact have a choice when it comes to walking around “with or without” these songs on your phone. Here’s how to get rid of them.

First things first: If you are subscribed to iTunes Match, it’s likely that all the Songs of Innocence are already downloaded to your phone’s storage by default. To make sure the tracks don’t resurrect after being wiped out, you’ll want to disable this feature. The button can be found in the iPhone’s Settings → Music → Automatic Downloads.

Now, to actually remove the album, you have to go into your Music app and delete each song individually (unfortunately).

Just navigate to Songs of Innocence under Albums, swipe left on each track and press the red Delete button that pops up. The songs will still show in your app, but now as iCloud-purchased content.

Finally, go back to your iPhone’s Settings app. Under the Music section, there will be a button that says Show All Music. As long as that is turned off, you will see only music that has been physically downloaded to your device, which should now not include Songs of Innocence.

And that’s it. Your phone is now just about U2-free. And that’s “just about” because we can’t help you with the all-too-Bono-looking icon above the Music app’s Artists button. Painful reminder of Tuesday Bloody Tuesday, we know. Sorry.

Have questions, comments, or just want to tell me something funny? Email me at danbean@yahoo-inc.com.