It looks like some of the rumors regarding iTunes that came out close to the event on Wednesday were true. Apple has turned it’s attention to social networking, and has built it right into iTunes, making it almost impossible for many to avoid.

Facebook already owns the trademark for their name, but for many outsiders their legal department is getting a bit too aggressive in defending it.

On September 1, Steve Jobs will take the stage at an Apple event to announce new iPods. How do we know? Because Apple is clearing out stock of existing models with its annual back-to-school sale, and the invite sent to bloggers has a guitar with an Apple-shaped hole in it. Oh, and there’s also the pattern of new iPods always being announced around this time.

The iPad is popular, there’s no denying that. Apple can’t keep the device in stock for very long, and we have designers making cases for it. It comes as no surprise then, that the iPad is seeing a huge amount of demand.

According to a study by Forrester, 14 percent of online shoppers plan on buying an iPad or similar tablet in the next year. That essentially means they plan on buying iPads. While Forrester asked “iPad or similar tablet,” only about 10 percent of those surveyed could name another tablet. Of those 10 percent, few could identify a real competitor. While some mentioned the Archos 7 or JooJoo tablets, some referred to the HP Slate,, or other devices which don’t yet truly exist on the consumer market. {Electronista}

We’ve all heard stories about how draconian the App Store policies can be. There was the whole debacle over political cartoons when Apple realized that satire wasn’t defacing public figures. There’s also the fact that even magazines like Playboy have to remove any hint of nudity from apps in order to get the approved. Now we have Apple pulling an excellent camera app because it put in an extra feature to use the volume buttons as shutter buttons.

Despite the fact that video chat has existed on phones for quite some time, when Apple announced Face Time for the iPhone 4, it was hailed as a revelation. It’s easy enough to start that almost anyone can use it, and Apple does a great job showing the moments where it would come in handy. We might never have an experience like those advertised, but it’s always nice to dream. The downsides? Both parties need an iPhone 4, and it only works on WiFi at the moment. Perhaps the latter could be a bright spot.

Back when the first Kindle launched, and especially last year with the release of the Kindle DX, there was always much speculation about how well eBooks will work in education. For years we’ve also seen a number of tablets shown off with educational uses. Now it looks like Oklahoma State University will be testing out the ecuational uses of the iPad.

Students enrolled in classes in the School of Media and Strategic Communications and the Spears School of Business will be given iPads for their classes. Those classes will use eTextbooks on the iPads in lieu of traditional dead-tree textbooks. According to the school, the ePub version of at least one class’s textbook is $100 cheaper than the paper version. Not sure how that adds up given that there’s no such thing a a used eTextbok, but it’s still quite a bit cheaper. If all the eTextbooks prove that much cheaper, the 16 GB iPad essentially pays for itself. Add in everything else the iPad can do, and it’s even better for students. {Wired Epicenter}

A few weeks ago we saw the eBook wars begin when Barnes & Noble announced the WiFi Nook and dropped the price of the standard Nook from $259 to $199. Amazon responded by dropping the Kindle 2 from $259 to $189. Obviously there’s a bit of a race to the bottom, at least in terms of pricing. It looks like that race is helping Amazon quite a bit in sales.

Without releasing exact sales numbers, Amazon has announced that since the price drop, Kindle sales have tripled. It looks like all that was holding potential buyers back from buying a Kindle was a price drop of just $70. It dips below the mental barrier of $200, and is almost in impulse buy territory in terms of gadgets. That means there’s a lot of people out there now who are willing to buy eBooks, perhaps above buying physical books. {Engadget}

On Friday morning Apple held a press conference to discuss the issues with the iPhone 4. The issues have been reported widely across the Internet, with many taking direct shots at Apple for the antenna issues. To attempt to put the issue to rest Steve Jobs came out to talk about how happy people are with the iPhone 4.

According to Jobs, Apple has received complaints from only 0.55% of customers via Apple Care. That number is likely not how many have experienced the issue, since many likely didn’t call Apple Care to report the issue since they already knew nothing was going to fix it for them. In terms of dropping calls, according to data Apple received from AT&T, compared to the iPhone 3GS, the iPhone 4 drops less than one more call per every 100 calls. So the iPhone 4 stacks up nicely when compared to previous iPhones.