Bono claims he and Apple are working on a new digital music format which will revolutionise the way music is consumed by fans.

Bono spoke about the new development in an interview with Time. He claims that it is around “18 months away” from being available to the public, which is around the same time the band are expected release a companion record to new album Songs Of Innocence titled Songs Of Experience.

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The unnamed format is described by Bono as being “so irresistibly exciting to music fans that it will tempt them again into buying music — whole albums as well as individual tracks.”

Elaborating further, Bono described it as “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.”

U2 and Apple<.strong> ‘gifted’ 500 million iTunes users with their new album earlier this month, however, after some users complained about the record being automatically downloaded onto their Apple products without their permission Apple released a tool to allow its customers to remove Songs Of Innocence from their devices with just one click.

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Bono said that Apple had bought the album as a “gift to give to all their music customers”. Reports have suggested that the price paid by the tech firm could be as much as $100 million (£62 million).

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