tell me about it... 2 apple stores in all of Canada... one on the outskirts of Toronto, and the other
conveniently located in Laval (north of montreal)...
Actually there are currently four Apple stores in Canada ... three in Toronto (one downtown) and one in Laval, which is a large suburb of Montreal (but rather far from downtown).
There are none in Vancouver or Ottawa, respectively Canada's 3rd and 4th largest cities and both markets with a significant technology industry. That makes Apple's retail absence from those markets all the more puzzling. It's not just that they're big cities, it's that they have the kinds of folks who would buy Macs.
In the case of Vancouver, metro population just over two million, it has no Apple stores while Seattle, two hours away by car and roughly the same size, has four stores in the metro area. (Maybe they just did that to tweak you know who?) Meanwhile, Palm Beach County FL, pop 1.5 million, where the largest city (West Palm) has only 250,000, boasts three Apple stores ... amid lots of folks who think computers exist solely to embarrass them in front of their grandchildren.
So saying that "of course NYC could use more stores," or that they need to place stores in large population centers, kind of misses the point. There are at least half a dozen Apple stores in the NYC metro area; after this one opens, three of 'em will be in Manhattan. Meanwhile, other, quite large metro areas with attractive markets for Apple are completely unserved.