iLounge.com released this weekend the new edition of the much-praised, much-downloaded online-only The Free iPod + iPhone Book.

Now on its fourth edition, it features everything you need to know about iPods, iPhones, iTunes and Apple TV in a 270-page book that can be printed out nicely if you don’t care about trees and nature. Speaking as a Mac user and magazine editor, this is one of the few titles I’d actually pick up from a newsstand and buy if it wasn’t already free and downloadable. Excellent and informative. The Doodler gives it high marks.

To get it, click here so that The Free iPod + iPhone Book 4 gets loaded onto iTunes for subscription, and you won’t have to worry about missing it and other iLounge Library online publications.

Go get the iTunes 7.6.1 update via Software Update. It’s basically meant for rental movies and Apple TV - things I don’t avail of or have - but if you do, grab the update. If you don’t have an Apple TV or rent movies, at least you can be happy with satisfying your obsessive need to have the most current version available. (At least you have Apple’s always-vague and -cryptic “includes several bug fixes”.)

Rent and download your favorite movies with iTunes on your computer or directly to your living room on Apple TV. Enjoy rented movies in sizes up to 720p HD with surround sound on your Apple TV and sizes up to DVD-quality on your computer. Transfer your rented movies from iTunes to your iPod or iPhone and enjoy them on the go.

Also, purchase and download your favorite TV shows, music, and more directly on your Apple TV. Effortlessly transfer purchases made on Apple TV back to your computer with iTunes.

iTunes 7.6.1 includes several bug fixes and improves compatibility with Apple TV software version 2.0.”

Contrary to concerns that, for the iPhone, Apple will also start collecting small payments for software upgrades, feature enabling and add-ons that used to come free (like the two bucks they charged to enable the 802.11n feature in shipped Macs), it ain’t true. You can rest easy.

All later software upgrades and feature enabling for the forthcoming iPhone will be free of charge. More importantly, “new software features and entirely new applications” will likewise be free. As if we needed another reason to buy one when it comes out. Early adopters rejoice!

Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer announced this for the iPhone (and the Apple TV) during the quarterly conference call done yesterday. “We hope the result will be to surprise and delight our iPhone customers,” he said. Which is about as far as he went; in true Apple fashion, no word on what these free features and applications will actually be.

Great. So release it already, durnit!