Hands up, who's sick of waiting for iTunes Music Store to make its way overseas? Because to us it just seems like the international versions have been "just around the corner" for, oh, about a thousand years now, and meanwhile all those poor Mac-using Englandites, Japanians, Franciscans, etc. are stuck with no way to buy legal downloadable music at all. At least the Wintellians in some overseas markets have some options-- like, say, Coca-Cola's downloadable music store in the UK-- but that's sort of like saying "Until your pancakes arrive you can chow down on this napkin." And like we said, for Mac users (and let's face it, who else counts?) it's no option at all.

Beyond saying that it's "hard at work" on wrangling licensing terms to sell music in distant lands, Apple isn't committing to anything even vaguely resembling a launch date, but here's hoping it's sooner rather than later-- not only because we're really tired of waiting, but also because, as faithful viewer David Poves points out, The Register reports that Number Two Service (and believe us, we mean "number two" in every possible sense of the phrase) Napster now has solid plans to launch its service in the UK by "the end of summer." And if Napster gets in there first, there's a chance that it'll bury its claws so deeply into the eardrums and wallets of the UK market that Apple will forever be playing catch-up.

"But AtAT," you ask, "how could Napster UK possibly launch first? Apple's been working on licensing for ages, now; how is it that Napster could negotiate acceptable terms faster, and without a Reality Distortion Field?" Well, it's like this, folks: Apple is pushing for uniform licensing and pricing all over Europe, which is apparently tricky. Napster, on the other hand, plans to launch its service on a per-country basis, which sounds like a technical and logistical nightmare, but at least it makes the licensing go smoothly. So its UK version launching by the end of the summer will be restricted entirely to UK purchases.

The worst case scenario as we see it is that Napster gets the UK population hooked on WMA before Apple comes charging in with its superior buying and listening experience, and UK buyers then all toss their iPods out the window and go buy a variety of crappy WMA-compatible knockoffs instead; then, giant fissures open in the earth's crust, the oceans rise and flood the planet's surface, and finally all civilization is vaporized when a massive meteor knocks the earth from its orbit and straight into the sun. There's no need to panic just yet, since we're pretty sure we've heard people mentioning that Apple expects to get the iTMS Europe online before mid-year, which would give Apple the head start, both in the UK and in the rest of the countries on the continent. Still, just think of those poor abandoned iPods. (And, um, the sun thing.) It'd be such a shame, you know? Everything we've been hearing indicates that UK denizens are completely fanatical about their 'Pods.

Then again, it cuts both ways; the iPod's enormous popularity in the UK could well scupper any chance Napster has at gaining a foothold in that market, even if it beats the iTMS to market. After all, who's going to buy music that they can't even play on their beloved iPods? Especially given how much those freakin' things cost over there. Still, we'd feel a lot better about things if Apple would just launch the store already. We're mildly allergic to earthquakes, floods, and plummeting into the sun.