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I got a few colleagues recommending the online course “Machine Learning” offered for free by Stanford University. That gave me the occasion to try it out through the new iTunes U application by Apple.

The previous incarnation of iTunes U was not so great. It was very iTunes centric (hence the name), but didn’t provide much more than aggregated downloads. At least with podcasts you can feel the advantage of the tight integration with their music players. As an application though, a kind of alternate form of iBooks, it works quite well. You can take notes, it remember where you are in the course, synchronizes across devices, as so on.

But already we can see why Apple is doing it, and it’s not for free. While previously tacking in podcast, video and PDF aggregation in iTunes was part of creating an ecosystem to entice people to buy Apple devices, the new iTunes U app allows in-app purchases, meaning buying not-for-free courses. Long-term it’s difficult to say, as with their new iBook textbooks, if it will work. But I still think that since some courses are great, many would mind too much paying for the materials, or even an option to pay a bit more to get credits or a certificate.

Does online courses replace a college or university for students? Of course not. But for professionals like me that barely have spare time, being able to learn on the go on your iPhone with quality course materials is a great thing. I actually prefer having universities offer the online course primarily for PC and Mac outside of Apple’s ecosystem, but cross-porting the course to iTunes U is a great addition.