Today’s the day for us down under to grab the latest upgrades from our friends at Apple. iPhone owners will want to sync up their phones and download the 3.1 update, and while you’re at it, grab the new iTunes 9. There are some good reasons to upgrade, especially with regards to iTunes.

The iPhone update isn’t too exciting, just a few tweaks here and there; It probably represents a lot of under the hood bug fixes and stuff that’s hard to put in a press release without sending everyone to sleep; Still, it’s good to have up to date firmware for your phone, so go get it!

iTunes is a different story; First of all, a feature that has been sorely needed is to be able to manage your applications through iTunes, not just the iPhone itself; Now you can, right down to organising the icons onto the page you want through iTunes. This should make managing large collections of apps much easier.

Apple have also release a new music format with iTunes 9, called iTunes LP. The new format embeds lyrics, pictures and other media into the files, so you can have the sort of experience you used to get with an old fashioned LP, but digitally. I’m not sure if this will take off, considering mp3 is such a well ingrained format. Sadly, the lyrics and other content will NOT sync across to your iPhone or iPod touch, which is a shame. Pricing will be up to the record labels, so there’s a good chance the LP versions will cost more.

Upgrades to the movie offering through iTunes was also announced; Now you’ll be able to get things like cast interviews, photos and other extras that you often get with the DVD version. Movie buffs will certainly like this!

The iTunes store is now much improved too; It’s much easier to jump straight to apps, tv shows or music, and the layout is easier to see whats new and being promoted. I like this update a lot!