That’s a bit strong,

The singer said he was ready to try to put the deal back together, so Vincent immediately called Jony Ive, another big U2 fan (he had first seen them in concert in Newcastle in 1983), and described the situation. Then he called Jobs and suggested he send Ive to Dublin to show what the black iPod would look like. Jobs agreed. Vincent called Bono back, and asked if he knew Jony Ive, unaware that they had met before and admired each other. “Know Jony Ive?” Bono laughed. “I love that guy. I drink his bathwater.” “That’s a bit strong,” Vincent replied, “but how about letting him come visit and show how cool your iPod would be?” “I’m going to pick him up myself in my Maserati,” Bono answered. “He’s going to stay at my house, I’m going to take him out, and I will get him really drunk.” The next day, as Ive headed toward Dublin, Vincent had to fend off Jobs, who was still having second thoughts. “I don’t know if we’re doing the right thing,” he said. “We don’t want to do this for anyone else.” He was worried about setting the precedent of artists getting a royalty from each iPod sold. Vincent assured him that the U2 deal would be special. “Jony arrived in Dublin and I put him up at my guest house, a serene place over a railway track with a view of the sea,” Bono recalled. “He shows me this beautiful black iPod with a deep red click wheel, and I say okay, we’ll do it.” They went to a local pub, hashed out some of the details, and then called Jobs in Cupertino to see if he would agree. Jobs haggled for a while over each detail of the finances, and over the design, before he finally embraced the deal. That impressed Bono. “It’s actually amazing that a CEO cares that much about detail,” he said. When it was resolved, Ive and Bono settled into some serious drinking. Both are comfortable in pubs. After a few pints, they decided to call Vincent back in California. He was not home, so Bono left a message on his answering machine, which Vincent made sure never to erase. “I’m sitting here in bubbling Dublin with your friend Jony,” it said. “We’re both a bit drunk, and we’re happy with this wonderful iPod and I can’t even believe it exists and I’m holding it in my hand. Thank you!” Jobs rented a theater in San Jose for the unveiling of the TV commercial and special iPod. Bono and The Edge joined him onstage. The album sold 840,000 copies in its first week and debuted at number one on the Billboard chart. Bono told the press afterward that he had done the commercial without charge because “U2 will get as much value out of the commercial as Apple will.” Jimmy Iovine added that it would allow the band to “reach a younger audience.”