Apple says iTunes U downloads top 1 billion

Apple says people have downloaded more than 1 billion items from iTunes U, which features free books, lectures and other information from schools, libraries and museums around the world.

Apple Inc said there are now single iTunes U courses with more than 250,000 students enrolled in them. Eddy Cue, senior vice president of Internet software and services, calls this a "phenomenal shift in the way we teach and learn."

The technology giant says more than 1,200 universities and 1,200 K-12 schools host courses on iTunes U. Stanford University in California, and The Open University, an online learning center based in the UK, each had more than 60 million pieces of content downloaded.

More than 60 per cent of the iTunes U app downloads are outside the US.