Rumors earlier in the week suggested that Apple Inc. (AAPL) was looking to roll out their iTunes in the Cloud services to its Japanese users, and on Wednesday, Apple did exactly that. This allows Japanese users to freely download previous content from the iTunes Store.

A report from 9to5Mac also revealed that AAPL included a number of other features to the Japanese iTunes Store, including iTunes Plus, 3G downloads, Ringtones, and Complete My Album. Apple has posted a What’s New page [Google translation] on its Japanese iTunes site, highlighting some of the new features:

– 3G downloads: Music downloads from iOS devices had previously been restricted to Wi-Fi only, but users can now access content over 3G networks.

– iTunes Plus: The Japanese iTunes Store now supports the DRM-free 256 kbps iTunes Plus format, up from the previous 128 kbps versions carrying usage restrictions. Labels will need to upgrade their content to the new standard, so it may take some time for all music to become available in iTunes Plus format.

– Ringtones: Music ringtones are now available for purchase in the Japanese iTunes Store.

– Mastered for iTunes: Rolling out on a worldwide basis, Apple is now featuring songs and albums that have been specifically mastered for the iTunes Store to provide the best sound quality for the format.

– Complete My Album: Users who previously purchased individual tracks from an album can now purchase the entire album for a discounted price based on a credit for their individual-track purchases.

With the latest update, Apple has not brought over almost all of the new features, except the iTunes Match service, currently available in only 37 countries. The iTunes Match service allows users to match or upload their entire music libraries to access from any iCloud-enabled device.

Apple has not commented as to whether they will bring over that service to the Japanese iTunes Store, but reports suggest that Apple is looking to bring over the service during the first half of 2012. A large part of Apple’s revenue stream now comes from Japan and China, only two of the countries in Apple’s Asian market.

{via MacRumors}

At a special education event on Thursday, Apple introduced a revamped version of their iTunes U services. iTunes U is a collection of podcasts in both audio and video formats, from a number of universities in the United States. Topics covered range from chemistry to basketball and offers a range of choices for different lessons and tutorials.

Apple has now removed the iTunes U service from a tab deep within iTunes and has created a brand new application, simply called ‘iTunes U’. This goes in part with Apple’s new push for education, following the release of textbooks for iPad, bringing a number of textbook publishers under the Apple umbrella.

If you’re an educator at a university, college, or K-12 school, now you have an easy way to design and distribute complete courses featuring audio, video, books, and other content. And students and lifelong learners can experience your courses for free through a powerful new app for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch.

The iTunes U app is available for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch on the App Store for free [App Store]. This new app brings together all pieces of the iTunes U service, and tightens Apple’s control over their multiple updates to the service over the past few years.

Apple’s education services went into the shadows recently, but is now poised to become a focal point of Apple’s revenue stream and targets a larger audience for their products.

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) have devoted the entirety of their website’s front page to a large white area with clock-faces showing the time in New York, London and Tokyo relative to the time of 07:00 AM in California.

The wording above those clock faces reads thus..

Tomorrow is just another day.
That you’ll never forget.

And we are invited to check back tomorrow on Apple’s web site for “an exciting announcement from iTunes”.

Apple rarely dedicates its front page to anything trivial. Occasionally they will devote the page for Red Cross, or similar organizations appeals for genuine causes, like massive disasters. But other that that their next big new product is generally given pride of place there.

Many rumor sites are suggesting that this announcement must be linked to a “Cloud Service” of some kind. And that does seem like the obvious call to us too.

Will we finally get to hear what, at least some of the bandwidth that Apple’s new Data Centers are capable of pushing out, is for?

Any ideas? Give us your best predictions in the comments…