Ars Technica originally had some doubts on the likeliness of iTunes 8 making an appearance at next Tuesday’s media event but now believes that iTunes 8 is expected to be released at the event.

In addition to the release of iTunes 8, Ars also believes that the latest iPhone firmware will be released.

Of interest is that Ars reports that features in the 2.1 firmware “were specifically removed from developer seeds in order to keep them secret from the world”.