Here are your Apple rumors and AAPL news items for today:

Classroom Use of iPads Growing: During the third quarter, Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) sold twice as many iPads to the education market than it did Macs, AllThingsD notes. That came during a period when Macs scored their highest ever education sector sales. Of the 17 million iPads sold during the quarter, 1million were sold to education market sources. Demand in the education sector appears to have been sparked after the iPad 2’s price was cut to $399 in the wake of the release of the newest iPad in March. Apple CEO Tim Cook said schools and other educational providers had wanted iPads, but needed lower prices to adopt them in large numbers.

Mountain Lion Debuts: Apple today released its next-generation Mac operating system exclusively for download through the Mac App Store, MacRumors notes. OS X Mountain Lion is priced at $19.99 and features iCloud integration, iMessage, Voice Dictation, and Game Center. The new Mac OS is designed to permit users to move documents and projects across multiple Apple devices, keeping track of editing changes and document updates. Apple has also released the server edition of OS X Mountain Lion for download at the Mac App Store.

Carrier iPhone Subsidies Will Continue: Discussing Apple’s third-quarter earnings, CEO Tim Cook called the subsidy paid by wireless carriers for the iPhone “fairly small” considering the money they reap from two-year contracts, Apple Insider said. Cook was responding to a conference call question about carriers that have complained about the subsidy. Cook countered by saying iPhone users switch carriers at a lower rate and are more likely to have other mobile devices, like iPads, compared to owners of smartphones running Google‘s (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android operating system, making them more valuable as subscribers. As long as Apple continues to create iPhones that generate so much consumer demand, it would remain in carriers’ interests to provide the subsidy, Cook noted.

For more about the company, check out our previous Apple Rumors stories.