350,000 Apple iBooks Fly Off Virtual Shelves in First Three Days
For all the ballyhooing over Apple's restrictive license for its iBooks 2 initiative, users seemed eager to flock to Cupertino's virtual book store and download in droves. To wit, All Things D is reporting that more than 350,000 textbooks were downloaded from Apple's iBooks Store within just the first three days of availability, a staggering number it sourced from Global Equities Research.
It's hard to tell if those numbers are accurate, especially since Global Equities Research "doesn't much care to discuss" its proprietary tracking system, but even just being in the ballpark would be a huge deal for Apple. It is worth mentioning, however, that many of these could have been free downloads of E.O. Wilson's Life on Earth by curious observers of how textbooks look on the iPad.
Apple launched its iBooks 2 app for the iPad last week, along with a companion authoring tool, iBooks Author, which Global Equities Research says has been downloaded more than 90,000 times. Using this new system, textbooks can be sold directly to students, potentially cutting out up to 35 percent of the cost of books. As it stands, high school textbooks will be available for $14.99 or less.
It's hard to tell if those numbers are accurate, especially since Global Equities Research "doesn't much care to discuss" its proprietary tracking system, but even just being in the ballpark would be a huge deal for Apple. It is worth mentioning, however, that many of these could have been free downloads of E.O. Wilson's Life on Earth by curious observers of how textbooks look on the iPad.
Apple launched its iBooks 2 app for the iPad last week, along with a companion authoring tool, iBooks Author, which Global Equities Research says has been downloaded more than 90,000 times. Using this new system, textbooks can be sold directly to students, potentially cutting out up to 35 percent of the cost of books. As it stands, high school textbooks will be available for $14.99 or less.
