Apple’s Secret Project Aims To Sell Records

TIME/Sebastian Kim

The Sept. 29 cover story for Time magazine reveals details about a new music file format Apple has “secretly” been preparing with U2, expected to “prove so irresistibly exciting to music fans that it will tempt them again to buy music.”

Bono reveals the new file format is at least a year and a half away, a timeframe his band expects to follow with its subsequent album, featuring the format.

Bono tells Time’s Catherine Mayer, “[it will be] an audiovisual interactive format for music that can’t be pirated and will bring back album artwork in the most powerful way, where you can play with the lyrics and get behind the songs when you’re sitting on the subway with your iPad or on these big flat screens. You can see photography like you’ve never seen it before.”

The Irish rockers were highlighted at the Cupertino titan’s Sept. 9 announcement, both performing and distributing its latest album, Songs of Innocence, for free.

Further details on the prospective service are not available.

As of Aug. 1, Apple acquired the streaming music service Beats Music for an estimated $3 billion. The rise in streaming music can be credited for a decline in 2014 record sales, of which Country has experienced a 19.6-percent drop from the previous year.

Apple began partnering with U2 10 years ago for a series of TV commercials and the first special edition iPod, and (PRODUCT) RED.