The jumbo version of Apple’s iMac has been hard to come by at third-party resellers for awhile now, but the issue is spreading to Apple’s own retail stores now. When using the online Apple Store and requesting a store pickup, almost half of the 249 Apple stores in the United States are showing a delay of a week or more, which means their location is out of stock.

The 21.5-inch version is still in abundant supply, but the 27-incher is far from it. Many will take this as a sign that a new version is coming. With Apple planning some big announcement for September 12, a new iMac might be one of them. It’s high time for the iMacs to join us in 2012 and include Intel’s Ivy Bridge lineup of processors, so that could be the plan for later this year.

Anti-Reflective iMac Screen

In the mean time, the 27-inch iMacs will likely remain scarce, as Apple attempts to clear out the current model before the new ones arrive. Of course, Apple could just be having production issues, and there could be no new iMac coming at all. We’re willing to bet that’s not the case, though. Given the iMac’s extensive use in hardware-intensive media applications, not having an Ivy Bridge CPU isn’t going to cut it for much longer.

[Via MacRumors]