Earlier this week, Apple made a big splash by slashing the price of its 1GB iPod shuffle to a you’ve-got-to-buy-one-now $49….except in you live in Canada.

Sadly, anyone north of the 49th parallel has to pay $55, or 12% more, based on an e-mail that arrived from Apple.ca this morning. Why the difference? The last time I looked, the US$ and C$ were trading close to par so you would think the shuffle should be selling for $49 in Canada too. Once again, Canada gets the short end of the technology stick.

And don’t get me started about the iPhone isn’t in Canada yet even it was launched eight months ago!

Update: Apparently, the analysts are happy about the shuffle price cut. American Technology Research analyst Shaw Wu expects that another 500,000 and 1 million additional shuffles will be sold this quarter due to the new prices.

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