Currently iTunes lacks the support of E-Books and as such it is no surprise that a new variant would be released shortly before the iPad launch.  The new features of iTunes will obviously cater to the iPad and the iBook store, but bring with it enhancements to the Genius Playlists and Auto Bit-rate conversions for devices previously unsupported, namely the iPod Shuffle.  This feature allows you to automatically convert your MP3 or AAC files to a lower bit-rate when moving the songs to the select device to conserve space.  There are other tweaks expected to make iTunes a better experience for all of us as well.  We can expect the release of iTunes 9.1 very very soon.

[via TUAW]