it’s that they chose U2. With the Beats staff on board, you’d think that someone would have pointed out that U2, while iconic, hasn’t been relevant for years.
I know there’s a long relationship between U2 and Apple, and making the U2 album a free album purchasable through iTunes would have been an amazing gesture. But, if you want to give people a “gift” (and, really, use it as a lever to get credit cards for Apple Pay), there are loads of other artists that would have had more resonance.
(My guess for artist with most cross-cultural appeal: Lorde.)