Okay, so Apple admits that it's a little late to the party: following yesterday's observation that the iTunes Music Store didn't make it to Canada by the end of November as promised, the company issued a statement to MacMinute and other Apple-obsessed news outlets confirming that the store really was late and not simply invisible or cleverly hiding behind the toolshed or something. "We said that we would launch the iTunes Music Store in Canada by the end of November, but we're going to miss this deadline by a bit," said Apple. Fair enough. So how long's "a bit," we all ask? "You'll hear from us very soon," they reply. Hmmmmmm.

We know those statements were meant to be reassuring, but if we were tune-starved Canadians with a fistful of loonies burning a hole in our pocket, we think we'd find them to be anything but. On the contrary, vague, open-ended quantities like "a bit" and "very soon" would have us twitching uncontrollably while picturing a store launch ten minutes after Buck Rogers meets Twiki. Faithful viewer zmapper reminds us that Mac OS Rumors reported last Sunday that iTMS Canada "might not be ready until the new year due to some licensing agreements which don't go into effect until midnight (A.M.) on January 1 2005," which is "only" a month away, and even that scenario would have us crawling the walls in near-terminal impatience.

After all, Apple said November. November is over. So if you're a Canadian at the end of his or her tether (say, nice tether!), we totally understand where you're coming from. It's been over a year and a half since the iTMS first appeared in the States; it could have walked from Cupertino to Toronto by now. So where the H-E-double-hockey-sticks is it?

Well, we can't really speak for Apple, you understand, but we expect its response would be something along the lines of "we gotcher Canadian iTMS right here, buddy!" Earlier today, Mac Rumors cited an "inside source" who claimed that the launch would take place on December 1st, and as faithful viewer Jon Slaton first pointed out, so it has. That's right, kids, if you click "Choose Store" on the iTMS home page in iTunes, you'll find that there's now a maple leaf nestled smugly among the Shiny Flag Buttons of Many Lands. (Frankly, we're a little puzzled why Apple bothered with the statement to the press at all, since "soon" evidently meant "in about twelve hours' time"-- but hey, whatever.) So get a-spendin', guys, because instant gratification has finally come to the Great White North.

On top of that, Canucks get a little compensation for having had to wait for so long: songs at the Canadian iTMS are just 99 cents in local currency, which is less than 84 cents in what we so irritatingly insist on calling "real money" and less than anyone else pays per song in the world. So now, alongside the curling, the health care, and the geographical convenience of stalking Degrassi stars, there's one more benefit of living in Canada: cheap downloadable tunes. And if you're panicking because now you can't complain about your lack of a local iTMS anymore, don't worry-- you've got at least a good six months left in which to complain about the lack of Apple retail stores!

In the meantime, what'll the rest of us complain about, you ask? Well, there's still no iTMS in Ireland; does that count?

While we're on the subject of sudden satisfactory resolutions to recent iTunes Music Store drama, remember all that kerfuffle over the iTMS UK "refusing" to sell the new Band Aid 20 version of "Do They Know It's Christmas?" The media was making Apple out to be a puppy-kicking, baby-pinching, uncharitable little weed just because the company didn't want to complicate its consumer-friendly pricing structure by selling a song for £1.49 as the record label was insisting, instead of for the 79p it charges for darn near everything else. We've since been informed by a slew of UK iTMSers that Apple does already sell some other songs for £1.49 as "single-song albums," but since the new Band Aid track is the fastest selling single of the year, we can totally understand Apple not wanting to set a "popular songs cost more" precedent in such a staggeringly visible manner. (It's been fighting off pressure for price hikes from the major labels for months, now, so the last thing Apple needs is for them to be able to say "but you did it for Band Aid!")

Anyway, the tussle's over, the dust has settled, and faithful viewer Steev Bishop tells us that Band Aid 20's song is now available at the iTMS after all-- and at Apple's preferred 79p price point. So did Apple win? Well, yeah, sort of-- but not really. According to BBC News, Apple was only allowed to sell the song for 79p by agreeing to donate another 70p out of its own pocket for every copy downloaded. In other words, Apple gets to keep its pricing structure, iPod owners get the song at roughly half-price, Universal gets its full £1.49, and the Sudanese refugees get whatever cut of that £1.49 Universal sees fit to give them. In that sense it's win-win-win-win, with the only loser being Apple's bank account (although its karma account is simply swelling lately). Sounds like the ending to a made-for-TV holiday special, doesn't it?

There's just one little dark patch on this shiny, happy resolution (not counting the likelihood that Universal is more or less extorting 70p from Apple per sale by holding the company's reputation hostage): apparently the Band Aid 20 song is, well, crap. We've yet to hear from a single Brit who likes it, but we've got a dozen or so messages giving it a thumbs down, ranging in severity from "not as good as the original" to "I'd rather listen to a 24 kbps WMA file of cats being swung by their tails while William Hung attempts to yodel." We've only heard snippets of the new song, ourselves, but we've got to agree: based on what we've heard, the latest version of "Do They Know It's Christmas?" seems a pale, cheesy shadow of the original. And yet those Sudanese refugees could really use some of your extra cash. What to do?

Well, luckily, you have several music-related options. If you're not averse to buying physical CDs (ooh, how '90s!), The Register suggests you take a look at the Band Aid Dilemma, a site urging you to purchase "as many copies of Do They Know It's Christmas by Band Aid 20 as you can afford" and then "destroy them in amusing ways" and send them photos. The Darfurians still get their money and you don't have to listen to the song; now that's win-win, baby. The all-digital version of this practice might be less impressive, but if anyone feels like downloading the iTMS track and sending Band Aid Dilemma a screenshot of the file being dragged onto the Trash or something, more power to you. [ADDENDUM: sorry, somebody already beat you to it.]

Apple's given you an alternative to the buy-'n'-shred route, however; the iTMS UK is also selling the original 1984 Band Aid recording of "Do The Know It's Christmas?" and donating all proceeds to the Darfurians, so if you're a bigger fan of the first version, by all means, grab that one instead. Of course, if you're in the U.S. and you can't buy either Band Aid song at the iTMS, don't forget that all proceeds from the Afrobeat Sudan Aid Project (ASAP) go to help Darfurian refugees, too, and while it doesn't feature Dido or Robbie Williams, it's probably far more culturally appropriate music considering the people whose plight it seeks to alleviate. (As faithful viewer Tim astutely points out, the Darfurians are mostly Muslim-- so, no, they probably don't know it's Christmas.)

See? One way or another, everyone wins. Now go have a cookie.

Perspective time! You are, of course, well aware that the iPod reigns supreme when it comes to market share among portable digital music players, and so you might be questioning the necessity of Apple's rumored decision to ship cheaper, lower-capacity flash-based iPods starting next month just to compete in the shallowest end of the pool. But here's the thing about the iPod: it isn't a runaway success everywhere. Sure, here in the U.S. it's got over 90 percent of the hard drive player market and nearly 60 percent of the market overall, so we feel pretty good about Apple's massive lead, but as it turns out, in some other countries the iPod is-- believe it or not-- getting smacked around so hard by the competition that it's bleeding from the ears and seeing double.

No, really, it is! To be honest, when faithful viewer Josh Lockie told us a couple of weeks ago that flash-based players were all the rage in Asia, we had no idea just how badly the iPod was getting stomped on. But according to the Korea Times, Apple currently has a goal of capturing the "third largest market share in the Korean MP3 player market within a year." Are you getting this? Apple's goal is to claw its way up into third place (behind iRiver and Samsung) in a year. Reportedly "97 percent of the Korean market is dominated by the flash-memory-type MP3 players," meaning that the iPod's market share in Korea is, at most, 3 percent-- and probably less, since it shares that little puddle with any other manufacturers splashing around with hard drive-based players. So figure that Apple has, what-- 2 percent market share over there? It's like Bizarro World or something. Or the Macintosh.

Now that we realize what the score is over in Korea (and, presumably, several other Asian countries), any reservations we had about the wisdom and necessity of Apple developing a flashPod have evaporated instantaneously, because the very notion that the iPod could have such an insignificant presence in any developed country fills us with profound sorrow and a deep questioning of the very nature of existence. There's just one little problem: Apple might not actually be working on a flashPod. Almost all the speculation is based on one analyst's contacts at an Asian manufacturing firm, and we've seen that sort of info turn out wrong before. ("Confirmed" reports a few years back that Apple-branded PDAs were rolling off the assembly lines spring immediately to mind.) There's also the fact that Apple Korea's CEO Sohn Hyung-man is saying that, since Apple "does not produce" flash-based players, his strategy for climbing into third place is "through aggressive marketing campaigns."

Of course, if he does know about an imminent flashPod release, we suppose he'd clam way up about it around the press, lest he be struck down by a psychic blast from Steve Jobs originating on the other since of the planet. We know, we shouldn't be rattled by Sohn's lack of cryptic comments about "new products coming down the pike sure to shake up the industry," but just knowing that there's a place on earth where the iPod could actually have a 2 percent market share has us foaming at the mouth in agitation. Memo to Apple: fix it. We don't care whether the solution involves flashPods, "aggressive marketing," or missile attacks on iRiver and Samsung manufacturing facilities; just fix the problem so we can sleep at night again. (Assuming we actually slept at night in the first place.)