Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

iTunes U Hits 600 Million Downloads

MacRumors

MacRumors

macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
68,734
39,680



itunes_u_darwin.jpg



The Loop reports that Apple's iTunes U education portal has topped 600 million downloads since its official launch four years ago. The milestone reveals a significant acceleration in activity, with the service having passed 300 million downloads just a year ago.
According to Apple, iTunes U has had more than 600 million downloads since it first launched in 2007. What's even more impressive is that they've had more than 300 million in the last year alone -- a testament to the growing popularity of the service.

Currently, iTunes U boasts more than 1,000 universities with active accounts. Schools contributing to the program range from big to small and include some of the world's most prestigious institutions like Harvard, MIT, Cambridge, Oxford, University of Melbourne and University of Tokyo.
Click to expand...
Open University and Stanford University top the list of most popular sources for iTunes U users, with each registering over 30 million downloads. iTunes U is available in 123 countries, with 30% of traffic reportedly coming from iOS devices.

Article Link: iTunes U Hits 600 Million Downloads
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2011/09/08/itunes-u-hits-600-million-downloads/
I've used it sometimes for some nice animations in Biology processes, especially cell-division. Very nice, although the Dutch Universities aren't using it yet, let alone to its fullest potential.
 
Pegamush said:
maybe i'm just an exception, but i don't even know what it is..
Click to expand...

I do wonder how many consumers know about it.

Considering such a rich source of educational material it has, it's rather odd that Apple doesn't promote it very much. I've used it quite a bit and spent hours looking through all the various lectures that are offered. One would figure that serious students would certainly be able to take advantage of all that knowledge compiled in one place that you could hardly find anywhere else on the internet. iTunes U is iTunes free hidden treasure and one of the main reasons schools should be considering the use of iPads.
 
I LOVE iTunes U. That said, I wish more participants updated more regularly. This is an amazing learning tool, if your a developer you can get the WWDC session videos which are awesome.

:)
 
Pegamush said:
maybe i'm just an exception, but i don't even know what it is..
Click to expand...

iTunes U is a conduit for delivering a vast variety of educational lectures world-wide. Many institutes participate in the open courseware initiative (see Wikipedia article), which started at MIT in 2002. Lectures are just one component of open courseware, but the large size of the videos makes them the most difficult to deal with. iTunes provides an ideal way to download and store the lectures and play them offline on a laptop, iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch.

Certain professors like Walter Lewin of MIT have become iTunes U celebrities. Lewin's lectures for physics courses are legendary and are well-known in many nooks and crannies around the planet. If you search on his name in the iTunes Store, you'll find a link to the iTunes U lectures. On MIT's open courseware webpage you'll find the full courseware material for Lewin's popular courses like 8.01 (classical mechanics), 8.02 (electricity and magnetism) and 8.03 (vibrations and waves). You can do anything from casually view the lectures to forming study groups to view lectures, solve the weekly problem sets, and take the exams.

Open courseware is great stuff, and iTunes U is a great way to access the lectures.
 
Constable Odo said:
I do wonder how many consumers know about it.

Considering such a rich source of educational material it has, it's rather odd that Apple doesn't promote it very much. I've used it quite a bit and spent hours looking through all the various lectures that are offered. One would figure that serious students would certainly be able to take advantage of all that knowledge compiled in one place that you could hardly find anywhere else on the internet. iTunes U is iTunes free hidden treasure and one of the main reasons schools should be considering the use of iPads.
Click to expand...

This!

I was horrified when I found out none of my classmates new about iTunes U. I use it all the time to learn about things before I take a class and to help me during class. Its a priceless resource.
 
chrono1081 said:
This!

I was horrified when I found out none of my classmates new about iTunes U. I use it all the time to learn about things before I take a class and to help me during class. Its a priceless resource.
Click to expand...

I should probably start doing that. I had heard of iTunes U, even got a couple of podcasts or whatever they are called. Thing is no time, but if i could use them for review and studying, they should be pretty useful. :D
 
It's a fantastic resource, I only started using it last year.

My only tiny quibble is that it (like much content on iTunes) can be difficult to browse. Better categorisation/taxonomy might help.
 
chrono1081 said:
This!

I was horrified when I found out none of my classmates new about iTunes U. I use it all the time to learn about things before I take a class and to help me during class. Its a priceless resource.
Click to expand...

There's also Lit2Go on iTunes U with hundreds of free audiobooks, created by some excellent readers.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back