According to tips sent in to Electronista, the reason that Apple’s planned iTunes streaming service yet to be released is due to the fact that the Cupertino-based company has yet to finalize licensing deals with major record labels. Apple currently has licensing deals which allow customers to stream music from their own computers to their devices, but streaming music directly from Apple’s servers — one of the features we mentioned in our exclusive on the service — would require a new deal be inked. Although Apple would like to get the deal finalized as soon as possible, allegations that many  record label executives have not have the service detailed to them indicates we may still have a ways to go.

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It’s time to get to upgrading, folks, because the new version of iTunes promises to be faster and includes a new set of features. The Genius feature now supports movies and TV shows beyond just music, CDs can be imported at a much higher quality and the overall experience is much faster. That means when you’re syncing your iPod or iPhone, browsing through playlists or shopping in the iTunes store, the improved speeds will make the experience more rich and pleasant – especially with how impatient many of us can be. Oh and if you’re planning on grabbing a new 4GB iPod Shuffle, iTunes 8.1 is required. You don’t need us to tell you what to do next, but just in case, go ahead and download it already!

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