Dive Brief:
- Apple announced Tuesday the expansion of iBooks Textbooks and the iTunes U Course Manager into Asian, Latin American and European markets.
- iBooks Textbooks are now available to teachers and students in Brazil, Italy, Japan, and 48 other countries, while educators in Russia, Thailand, Malaysia, and 67 other countries can now take advantage of iTunes U Course Manager.
Dive Insight:
Though the iPad tends to grab the most education-related headlines for Apple, the Cupertino computing giant's educational offerings extend beyond its tablet. iBooks Textbooks include a library of 25,000 interactive titles from independent publishers, teachers, and education service companies, with publishers including Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, and Hodder Education. Meanwhile, the iTunes U Course Manager is a free app with what the company says is the world's largest library of free educational content from top educational institutions.
Apple certainly has a strong foothold in education now, but it remains to be seen to what lengths competition wanting a slice of that pie is willing to go. Google in particular remains a force to be reckoned with, given its Android platform, which has over 1 billion activations worldwide.
