AllThingsD reports on a new research note from Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdhry claiming that customers downloaded approximately 350,000 iBooks Textbooks from the iBookstore over the first three days of availability. That performance was accompanied by over 90,000 downloads of Apple's iBooks Author app from the Mac App Store. If those numbers are accurate, Apple’s textbook effort would seem to be off to a good start

Earlier today we published a story about iBook Author's exclusivity clause which generated some confusion. To clarify, Apple is not claiming exclusive sales rights to the content of published textbooks but to the specific output format (iBooks) generated by their iBooks Author tool.

Engadget highlights the economics of publishing iBooks Textbooks to the iBookstore, noting that paid downloads follow Apple's traditional App Store and iBookstore model where the company takes a 30% cut of the purchase price of each book. Authors are free to set their own pricing, although Apple has placed a maximum price tag of $14.99 on the textbooks. In addition, the report notes that Apple requires all iBooks Textbooks to be exclusive to the iBookstore.

At its education-focused media event today, Apple introduced iBooks 2 , an updated version of the company's e-book software for iOS devices. The update comes as part of a push into interactive digital textbooks in partnership with a number of major publishers. From the iBooks 2 description : Introducing iBooks 2 — now with iBooks textbooks

Reuters reports that Apple has been fined the equivalent of $1.2 million in Italy over issues related to warranty disclosures. According to the report, Italy's antitrust regulators ruled that Apple has not been providing adequate disclosures about the two free years of product warranty assistance required under Italian law, while also pushing customers to purchase AppleCare extended warranties without disclosing that many of the benefits overlap the standard warranty. The authority said Apple Sales International, Apple Italia and Apple Retail Italia did not properly inform customers that they were entitled to two years of free assistance under Italian law