Another major announcement today from Apple’s education-based media event is the release of iTunes U—formerly only an educational podcast section within the iTunes Store—as an official iOS app. According to Apple’s Eddy Cue, who made the announcement on behalf of the company, over 1,000 universities currently make use of iTunes U, which has seen over 700,000,000 total downloads since its launch.

A Thursday ruling from the Copyright Royalty Board could force Apple to follow through on a threat to close down the iTunes Music Store. The Board, a three-judge panel, which will determine how much money creators are paid for their works, could follow through on a request from the publishers association to increase payments from 9 cents to 15 cents a track. Apple has said that move would make the ITMS unprofitable, and that it would be shut down rather than operate at a loss.

CNN has this statement from Eddy Cue Apple’s VP for iTunes:

“If the [iTunes music store] was forced to absorb any increase in the … royalty rate, the result would be to significantly increase the likelihood of the store operating at a financial loss – which is no alternative at all,” Cue wrote. “Apple has repeatedly made it clear that it is in this business to make money, and most likely would not continue to operate [the iTunes music store] if it were no longer possible to do so profitably.”

To which I reply, yeeeeeeeah, sure.

More after the break.

According to Ars Technica, Steve Jobs sent an e-mail to Apple employees last night admitting that MobileMe was launched too early.

“It was a mistake to launch MobileMe at the same time as iPhone 3G, iPhone 2.0 software and the App Store,” said Jobs.

More after the break.