Great news, Canadians! No, it's not the launch of the Great White North edition of the iTunes Music Store; that's still nowhere to be seen, although widespread rumors peg its unannounced go-live date as Friday of next week. We'll understand if you aren't overly-awed by the prediction; there really isn't much of November left in which Apple can keep its promise, so you're right, it doesn't take a Kreskin to pick the last remaining Friday and run with it. But for what it's worth, MacRumors had reported the November 26th date way back before Apple even made the "sometime in November" announcement, so you can decide for yourself whether or not that counts for anything.

But anyway, while you prepare for the iTMS to loot, pillage, and burn your credit card account (and salt the earth so that nothing will ever grow there again) sometime within the next week and a half, the "great news" to which we referred is that the advent of Canadian Apple retail stores is finally official-- not officially official, mind you, but close enough for journalism, anyway. In other words, there still hasn't been a public announcement from Apple itself, but faithful viewer Cool, eh told us that macosXrumors posted an excerpt from email sent by Apple Canada to its north-of-the-border resellers announcing that "an Apple Branded Retail Store location will be opening in Toronto, mid year 2005"-- and CNET reports that Apple has confirmed that fact to them. In other words, this is as official as it gets without a press release, a Stevenote, or an Apple press contact breaking into your house overnight, strapping you down, and tattooing it across your forehead.

For those of you who may have forgotten, AppleInsider recently reported that Apple's Toronto store-- one of them, at least-- will be in the Yorkdale Shopping Center; since Yorkdale reps had previously also cited a "mid-2005" time frame for an Apple retail store opening (pending the signing of the lease), presumably this is the store to which Apple refers in its reseller memo. Since AI was apparently accurate in that regard, it's worth reminding you that the site also claims that an Apple store will eventually sprout up in the Vaughan Mills Mall, which itself just opened a few weeks ago (well, technically AI said that Apple would be one of the "first anchored tenants," which was clearly not true, but why quibble over minor details?) and that Apple had originally planned to have four Canadian stores open by the end of this year-- so more are almost certainly on the way.

What this all means, of course, is that in six or seven month's time, Canada will have access to pretty much all the same cool Apple stuff that we do here in the U.S., barring some of the promos. (Heck, if the rumors are correct and songs at the Canadian iTMS wind up costing 99 Canadian cents, they'll even be getting cheaper songs than us.) Now, as any Canadian Apple fan knows, that sort of parity between U.S. and Canadian Apple offerings runs counter to the natural order of the universe and will surely collapse upon itself almost immediately. In other words, by the time Canada gets its first taste of Apple retaily goodness, we ought to be getting something brand new and insanely great exclusively here in the States to keep the balance off-center; we don't know what it'll be, but we're hoping it's free money. Or maybe a pony.