A report filed by a tipster claiming access to iTunes 9 says that it is “possible” the next version of Apple’s media player will sport both DVD import and playback as well as Facebook integration, allowing users to advertise songs and playlists with their friends.

The report and screenshots were published by the Boy Genius Report, which earlier in the month wrote that iTunes 9 is expected to allow organization of iPhone apps and iPod games and indicated some sort of social media integration was in the cards.

The latest report includes screen shots that depict a Facebook category in the iTunes Source list, allowing users to advertise new song titles and playlists in their Facebook profile. Also included is a screen shot of how advertised tracks would appear on Facebook.

BGR also presents a screen shot of iTunes 9 that suggests the capability to sync music, video, podcast, and photo content to third party device, a Samsung YH-J70xx MP3 player. Apple has previously only signaled a disinterest in supporting sync with third party devices, actively halting the Palm Pre’s attempts to identify itself as an iPod.

More interesting are the depiction of buttons in the lower right that allow for DVD

playback and import, suggesting that iTunes could do for DVDs what it got started doing for CDs. Were Apple to negotiate the right to rip DVDs, it would radically change the home movie industry in ways the industry has not demonstrated any interest in exploring. However, the addition of a “DVD Playback” button suggests that the screen shots are more likely to be fakes, as iTunes already has a playback button: “play.”

The studios have worked hard to thwart any commercial attempts to enable users to rip their own DVDs, recently filing an injunction against RealNetwork’s DVD Ripper software and even opposing a home theater installer from allowing users to rip their own DVDs for digital playback, despite the system not even producing an easy to distribute copy.

At Macworld Expo 2008, Apple announced having worked out a compromise with Twentieth Century Fox called Digital Copy for iTunes, which puts a mobile version of the movie on the DVD for use with iPods, the iPhone, Apple TV, and other media devices. Many new DVDs now include a Digital Copy of the movie, which doesn’t require any media ripping steps (transcoding and compression); instead, it simply initiates an iTunes download using a code included with the DVD.

A fun game enjoyed by many Facebook users, Bumper Stars combines the likes of pinball, pool, and shuffleboard, complete with colorful graphics and bumping beavers. The release of this game-turned-app, created by PressOK Entertainment and Large Animal Games, was announced today, and will bring an addictive favorite to the app store. Those with Facebook accounts can now access the game from their phone  as well as the web and continue challenging their friends, and those without accounts will be introduced to another fun way to waste/spend/kill time on their iPhone or iPod Touch.

over on Facebook and Twitter, the app is about 98%, no 92%, no 97% done, however there was not any other indication as to when it would actually be submitted to Apple for approval into the App Store.
As to what we can expect to see, how about we begin with what we are not going to see — Push Notifications. According to the post, Push Notifications are currently being worked on, however they will not be in Facebook v3.0, instead it looks like we “can expect it in a 3.1 update later this summer.”

Anyway, moving on, aside from the lack of Push Notifications there are plenty of other new features to look forward to.

1. The “new” News Feed
2. Like
3. Events (including the ability to RSVP)
4. Notes
5. Pages
6. Create new photo albums
7. Upload photos to any album
8. Zoom into photos
9. Easier photo tagging
10. Profile Pictures albums
11. A new home screen for easy access to all your stuff, search, and notifications
12. Add your favorite profiles and pages to the home screen
13. Better Notifications (they link to the comments so you can reply)
14. Quickly call or text people right from the Friends page
15. Messages you are typing will be restored if you quit or are interrupted by a phone call