It's not often that a writer on Blake gets an excuse to link to the biggest technology event of the year. In case you haven't heard, Apple yesterday announced the launch of the new iPhone 6 ("bigger than bigger" according to their site) and Apple Watch. And the connection to William Blake, who died a couple of centuries before he could get his hands on either device? The release of U2's new album, Songs of Innocence, free to iTunes users.

The link to Blake is not entirely out of the blue. Steve Jobs was once described as having an "inexhaustible interest" in the works of Blake, while U2 have more than a passing interest in the Romantic poet: the lyrics of "Beautiful Ghost" from the album are Blake's "Introduction" to Songs of Experience. Obviously that link has remained engrained somewhere, leading to the latest album being made available exclusively via Apple this week.

Not everyone has been impressed by U2's invocation of Blake, however (and John Doran's opinion piece at http://thequietus.com/articles/16217-bono-u2-songs-of-experience is particularly worth reading).

As the equivalent of a graphic designer of his day, it's pretty clear to me that Blake would have been a Mac user today (for all that I secretly desire him to have been a Linux hacker) - at least when he could have afforded any kind of computer. I'll follow with a review on the U2 album shortly, but in the meantime you can listen to it at https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/songs-of-innocence/id915794155.