“Apple’s dominance in the mobile and online music markets is going seemingly unchecked, coupled with rising interest in the iPhone and iPad,” said analyst Gene Munster. “In our most recent survey, those who plan on purchasing an iPhone in the next six months was up to 37 percent, an all-time high in our surveys. We believe the teen demographic is a critical component of long-term growth in the mobile market, and Apple is taking its lead in music and leveraging it in the mobile category.”

A new study, though, found that videogames can have benefits for teen girls–as long as they play with their parents.

The research found that girls ages 11 to 16 years old who played videogames with a parent behaved better, felt more connected to their families and had better mental health than girls who played with friends or on their own. The study, by researchers at Brigham Young University’s School of Family Life, and published today in the Journal of Adolescent Health, examined 287 families with teens.

It’s tough for many parents to connect with their teenagers, who sometimes view the other as an alien life form. Maybe bonding over videogames, at least for teen girls, is the way to go.

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About 20 states have enacted or proposed measures that deal with teenage sexters. Generally, the legislation is aimed at treating minors in a more lenient fashion than if they were prosecuted under existing child-pornography or child-exploitation laws, which include the possibility of prison time and sex-offender status.

Since May, states including Arizona, Connecticut, Louisiana and Illinois have enacted laws that impose relatively modest penalties against minors who sext, while maintaining harsher penalties for adult offenders.

While many of the new rules make sexting punishable by small fines and short stints in a juvenile-detention facility, there is still little agreement on what the appropriate penalty is—or whether prosecutors should be involved at all.

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Consider these metrics:

Of the teens Piper Jaffray surveyed,

• 15 percent own iPhones (up from eight percent six months ago)
• 22 percent plan to buy an iPhone in the next six months
• 87 percent own iPods (up from 86 percent six months ago)
• 93 percent of the 40 percent who legally purchase music online use iTunes

Music to Apple’s (AAPL) ears, right? “Apple’s dominance in the CE and online music markets is going seemingly unchecked, capped by market saturation for iPod and iTunes usage,” Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster writes in his analysis.

“Also, interest in the iPhone remains high…We believe the $99 iPhone 3G has been a meaningful part of share gains in the last six months. Previously, teens were indicating that the plan pricing and handset pricing were too high for them (and their parents) to buy iPhones. The lower pricing appears to have been a catalyst for share gains. Also, the popularity of the App Store and the quality of games available for the iPhone have likely led to the gains among the teen demographic in recent months.”

Munster’s conclusion: “Apple is taking its leading position in music and mobile markets.”

The Silicon Valley company–perennial underdog to Intel (INTC) in the microprocessor wars–has been sending out signals that it wants to move away from marketing such chips based on how fast they are. Leslie Sobon, vice president of worldwide marketing, argues in an interview this week in TG Daily that customers don’t need to know that kind of techie stuff–what’s more important is what a PC with one of its chips does, what chores it’s best suited for. A new marketing campaign based on that concept, dubbed Vision, is expected to be announced Thursday.

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