Apple Thoughts - News & Reviews on all things Apple

"There's a pretty high level of excitement flowing from Thursday's arrival of the iTunes U app."

I think the education section of iTunes was already pretty popular, but now the interest that it has generated in colleges is bound to increase that popularity. More excitement means more content, and from a greater variety of sources. Even community colleges are getting in on the act. What are your thoughts on this new app from Apple?

"The (now digital) ink has dried on Apple's education event, we've met the new apps, we've seen the new services, and we've gotten an idea of where Apple is heading when it comes to schools, textbooks, and learning."

As is the case after every Apple event, the number of news stories are overwhelming! To alleviate some of the head spinning, iMore.com has done a nice job gathering up a few of the more informative stories for each part of the event, splitting them up under iBooks 2, iBooks Author, iTunes U and commentary.

"Last month we reported that Apple's iTunes U service had surpassed the 600m downloads mark, 300m of which were in the past year alone. And now it seems that The Open University in the UK is leading the university pack, notching over 40m downloads, reports the BBC."

Founded in 1969, The Open University is now the top school in iTunes U. This is saying quite a bit I think, since they have courses from the likes of Stanford, Yale, MIT and many others. Beginning French and Chinese were the most popular downloads and at least 1/5 of all downloads was done on an iPad. iTunes U is a gem in my book, and you can find out more about iTunes U right here.

"Apple's iTunes U, an initiative encouraging schools to offer print, audio and video downloads of their eduction programs almost entirely free to the public, has hit a new milestone of 600 million downloads."

600 million downloads, and I can see why. Impressive is the fact that as of last August they only had 300,000 downloads, and now they hit 600 million in a little over a year later. This is one of my favorite parts of the iTunes store, but I'm nerdy like that I guess. What are your thoughts, have you visited this section of the store?

""The education-specific channel of its iTunes Store, launched in 2007, has reached a new milestone, recording more than 100 million downloads, Apple told CNET on Friday."

iTunes U was launched in May of 2007, and has a wide variety of categories you can download content from like Law, Science, Psychology and Arts and Humanities. The content comes from over 175 higher-education organizations such as Princeton, Harvard, MIT and Oxford University.

"Interested in College lectures? Yale has always offered lectures and interviews on iTunes U, but you now can enjoy full classes."

Yale is among several universities that offer courses at iTunes, the best part is that they are free. There are a wide variety of classes from financial market classes to one on Milton, so they seem to cover a broad range of interests. This, as well as the other curriculum on iTunes, is well worth checking out.

"Last week, Virginia Governor Timothy Kaine launched a series of new K-12 education initiatives that includes Virginia on iTunes U and a program to develop new mobile education apps to help students learn math."

Over 200 colleges and universities participate in the iTunes U program as well as over a dozen K-12 schools. There are also other agencies and groups in the program such as the Smithsonian, but it never hurts to have more. Virginia plans to use the program to support the Virginia Standards of Learning, and all content will have to be approved through the Virginia Department of Education. In conjunction with this initiative, they are also starting a Learning Apps Development Challenge for iPhone developers, to develop an application "focused on middle school mathematics standards of learning." The winner will be announced late June during the National Educational Computing Challenge.

"Northwestern University will be launching its iTunes U site on February 17. The site will feature over 250 pieces of audio and video content, including news programs, performances, lectures, events, and content produced for the Big Ten Network."

Apple has a pretty impressive list of providers for this section of iTunes, with a library of over 100,000 audio and video files. This is one of my favorite parts of the iTunes store, and I enjoy browsing and being surprised at the content that is made available. And it's not just a one way street, as Apple also provides information on how "your" university can become part of the free iPhone Developer University Program and teach students how to program applications for the iPhone/iPod Touch.