Over half from last year, Apple reveals

The educational service of the iTunes Store, iTunes U, has seen over 600 million downloads so far, Apple has disclosed. Apple rarely discusses iTunes statistics, much less for iTunes U, which provides lectures and other podcast content from schools such as Harvard, MIT and Oxford. Surprisingly, even though iTunes U has been around since 2007, Apple says that over half of the 600 million downloads were made during the past year.

The acceleration could be attributable to several causes, such as growing popularity of Mac and iOS devices, or Apple attempts to ingrain all of its products into schools. In any case the institutions with the most downloads are Open University and Stanford, each of which has recorded over 30 million. Behind them are Yale, MIT, the University of California Berkeley and the University of South Florida, all of which have passed the 20 million mark.

At the 10 million-plus level are Emory, Oxford, Harrisburg Area Community College and Germany's Ludwig Maxmillians University. In all iTunes U is said to have more than 1,000 schools with active accounts, spread across 123 countries; 60 percent of iTunes U users live outside the US. Some 30 percent of global traffic is said to route through iOS devices.

by MacNN Staff