Apple again: This time with an end-to-end solution for education

Apple resembles Phoenix bird!

Apple was at the back seat for more than a decade with weak wings against a group of giant birds – Intel, Microsoft etc. But with iPod, Apple rose like a Phoenix bird and from then on it is heading towards creating histories in IT space.

Apple now preaches an end-to-end solution based on its retail success baby – iPod. The solution is for the education sector by providing a platform for creating, managing, distributing, and accessing educational content. This new mantra is “iTunes U”.

In their words….

iTunes U is a free, hosted service for colleges and universities that provides easy access to your educational content, including lectures and interviews 24hours a day, 7 days a week.

It’s the most powerful way to manage a broad range of audio or video content and make it available quickly and easily to students, faculty, and staff. And it is the only application that supports the over whelmingly popular iPod. iTunes U also offers you the simplicity and mobility you expect from Apple because it is based on the same easy-to-use technology of iTunes Music Store

Through iTunes U, users can download content to their Macs or PCs regardless of their location. They can then listen to and view content on their Mac or PCor transfer that content to iPod for listening or viewing on the go.

They have been piloting this with Stanford and Michigan Universities. The below image is from their content management application – iTunes U – for Stanford University. If you wish to know what Michigan has done with iPod, click here.

What I liked about Apple is their strategy for iPod. At first, they introduced iPod as a pure retail, lifestyle, must-have music playing gadget. It slowly picked up and beat all its competitors and established the iPod brand. Later they introduced video iPods and also a must have accessory – eye buds -for viewing the video virtually on a larger screen. I did blog this before here. Now they are heading to capture the most likely prospects of their product -students – with a better solution for delivering education content. And all this with an end-to-end tag, starting from creating, then distributing and then accessing the content.

I love this…. kodos to the marketing strategist at Apple. He is, I’m certain, a visionary person dreaming about a product whose life never ends!

I’m eager to get associated with a product company like Apple. I am certain that I am now!

technorati tags: Apple, iPod, end-to-end solution, phoenix, education, stanford, michigan, iTunes U