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Why did Apple put out a press release today about reaching the milestone of 15 billion downloads? Maybe to distract you from the other news about how it just lost the rights to the term "App Store" in a high-profile lawsuit against top competitor Amazon.

Well, guess what? It worked! Look what our headline reads!

Still, it is an impressive number, and one that puts competing app stores to shame. And Apple had even more new numbers to reveal today, too.

ZohoCRM, the popular SaaS business suite, has extended its reach into the mobile world with two new apps for iPhones and Blackberries that are available today. You can watch the intro video here on their blog. The iPhone app integrates with other iPhone functions, such as getting directions to an address and sending emails to customers, as well as having your calls logged as activities inside the Zoho main CRM application.

The new iPhone, expected to launch sometime in Q3 2011, will be "thinner and lighter" than the iPhone 4, according to a new report from The Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the situation. It will also include an 8-megapixel camera - a big step up from the 5-megapixel camera now in the iPhone 4, claims the paper.

While the 8-megapixel camera has been reported by numerous sources, the design itself is still in question. Last month, for example, Bloomberg said the new iPhone would "closely resemble" the iPhone 4. And in May, This is my Next... reported the iPhone would sport a teardrop-shaped design. What's really going on?

JailbreakMe.com, the easy-to-use browser-based jailbreaking tool for Apple mobile devices has just gone live with version 3.0. What this means is anyone can now jailbreak their iOS device running the 4.3 software (or below, in some cases), including the iPad 2. There is no software to download on your computer; nor does your phone, iPod Touch or iPad have to be physically connected to the computer for this to work. Instead, all the jailbreaking is done via the JailbreakMe.com website, thanks to a PDF-based exploit.

In our continuing tradition of rounding up new mobile application releases we found interesting and/or exciting over the past month, we present you with this new list of apps for June 2011. Previously in June, we shared a list of apps that came out in May and during the first part of June, so be sure to check that post for some early June app launches.

This time around, we're again focusing on new (and notably updated) iPhone and Android applications, as well as a few iPad, tablet and cross-platform apps that caught our eye. As always, share which apps are your new favorites in the comments below.

Shortly after Google unveiled Swiffy, the Flash-to-HTML5 conversion tool designed for WebKit browsers, mobile app development firm appMobi launched a related utility called appFlash. This new tool takes advantage of Swiffy's capabilities, allowing mobile developers to convert app assets coded in Flash into native iOS applications.

A new feature uncovered in the second beta release of iOS 5 is great news for Web developers. It seems that native-style scrolling will be made available to Mobile Safari through a new CSS property. When used, Web developers will be able to implement native-style momentum scroll in Web pages, allowing Web apps to function more like native applications do today.

Apple will release two new iPhones come September, according to speculation from analyst Chris Witmore of Deutsche Bank: the iPhone 5 and the 4S. The idea makes sense, as it would allow Apple to simultaneously address both the mid-range smartphone market with a more affordable device while also providing a more expensive model for the high-end.

However, the theory appears to be nothing more than that: a theory. Meanwhile, a separate report from Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty states that production for the next iPhone will begin in August.

Registered Apple developers who were unable to attend this year's WWDC can now watch what they missed over on Apple's Developer Center website. Apple has posted 109 WWDC session videos online, which include both videos of the presentations and the accompanying slideshows.

According to a new report from analytics firm Distimo, the iPhone app download volume in Asian countries, led by China, has seen significant increases over the past 6 months, even as Western markets saw decreases. And China is now the second largest market in this area, after the U.S.

However, even though the numbers of downloads are increasing in this region, the proportion of paid downloads and overall revenue is lagging behind both the U.S. and Europe. That means developers wanting to expand their businesses into Asia need to have other monetization plans in mind, such as advertising.