When it was introduced last January, Apple originally proclaimed that the iPod's cheaper, svelter, more colorful sibling would ship "worldwide in April," which made the non-U.S. chunk of the world groan with impatience. Of course, the groans only got louder when April was just a week away and Apple pulled that ever-so-slick "Did we say April? We meant July" move... but now July is here, and when faithful viewer Norman Cho informed us that the Apple Store UK had gone offline last night (while the U.S. one had not), it wasn't a stretch to imagine what might be getting stocked on the virtual shelves back in Old Blighty.

Virtually stocked, anyway.

We suffered a mild aneurysm when the UK store came back online and still had no miniPods for sale, but eventually faithful viewer Small Paul reported that the goods had finally appeared on the shelves after all-- and so now miniPods are apparently available for preorder from Apple's various localized Apple Stores. The key word here is "preorder" (and the key prefix is "pre"), since according to Apple's press release non-U.S. miniPods won't actually start to ship for another fortnight or so, on the 24th. And actually, Apple qualifies things even further, stating only that the miniPod "is expected to be available... on July 24th." Expected. Given that supplies in the U.S. are still constrained, we wouldn't go betting the mortgage on that date, but in any case it's a whole heckuva lot better than hearing "Did we say July? We meant November."

By the way, UK 'Poddites, rejoice-- and not just because your day of minidom is reportedly at hand. Remember the flap that ensued when you all heard that Apple planned to sell miniPods for £199 in your neck of the woods? Today that amounts to roughly $369.58, for a 48% markup over Apple's $249 U.S. price. Well, a quick trip to the Apple Store UK reveals that Apple has instead set the price at £179, or roughly $332.43. Still sounds high? Well, that £179 includes VAT, your obscenely high tax; sans VAT, the price is £152.34, or $282.92-- not too much more than the U.S. price, which doesn't include our per-state sales tax. So there's been some improvement, at least. Plus you get free shipping, so hey.

Meanwhile, faithful viewer Jason Taylor confirms that, yes, the miniPod is now even available for preorder in Canada. And despite sharing a continent (not to mention a border) with Apple's home country, Canada's been stiffed on all sorts of seemingly obvious things like retail stores and the iTunes Music Store, so that's really saying something. Better still, the Canadian price is $349, which-- when you subtract out the $15 Blank Media Levy-- is only about four U.S. smackers more expensive than the home-turf price.

If miniPods can be preordered in both the UK and Canada, two countries notoriously snubbed by Apple in the past, you can probably rest assured that they're available in the rest of the world, too. Finally, pent-up demand will be satisfied and miniPods will take over the world... assuming Apple can ship more than six or eight of them per week, that is.