Apple programmers earned their pay today (some of it, anyway) when they released a developer early edition of the iTunes 8.2 patch. Another beta version of the iPhone OS 3.0 came out today as well. As with any new release, this new 8.2 patch gives us some tantalizing new information about future developments from Apple.

The 8.2 iTunes patch is required to gain access to the OS 3.0 release. This latest iPhone update has been hotly anticipated since it was revealed in March. What exactly will be new about 3.0 hasn't been revealed yet, but we should be getting some tantalizing glimpses over the next few days as more people tweak around with the beta.

As you might have heard, rumors are already spreading like wildfire throughout the Internet about whether or not Blue-Ray is coming to iTunes. Although the current beta of 8.2 does not support Blue-Ray, some Blue-Ray data does appear in the system documents. This had lead to rampant speculation that Apple is hard at work making iTunes Blue-Ray compatible.

This news shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. Apple would be foolish to ignore the growing success of Blue-Ray as a platform. They got to the top of the game by being one of the most forward-thinking companies in the business, and they know the importance of opening your brand up to as many avenues of business as possible. An online Blue-Ray store on iTunes would make a killing right now, and there's no way Jobs is going to ignore that much profit potential.