The collaboration between Apple and U2 seems to go beyond the release of the rock band's latest albun via itunes. A new digital music format is in the works, according to U2's leader Bono. Speaking to latest issue of Time Magazine, Bono says that a new digital music format will prove so irresistibly exciting to music fans that it will tempt them again into buying music ? whole albums as well as individual tracks.

No further information is provided. However, Bono blogged about the release of the band's new album saying:

"We?re collaborating with Apple on some cool stuff over the next couple of years, innovations that will transform the way music is listened to and viewed. We?ll keep you posted."

U2 and Apple essentially forced about 500 million people to download U2's latest songs since they were autiomatically added to the libraries of iTunes users. Apple later offered a tool to remove them.

Apple has tried to cater to audiophiles recently with its "Mastered for iTunes" series of high-quality remastered albums.

In addition, a new music formats aimed to tempt fans into buying their music is Pono - a music player that plays ultra-high resolution music in FLAC format. So someone might expect a similar offering by Apple.