Shipments of 27-inch iMacs delayed as Apple scrambles to fix graphic issues

John Brownlee ()

broken-imac

Apple’s long and tortuous travail trying to solve its 27-inch iMac production woes doesn’t look likely to end before the New Years, according to reports from authorized resellers who say that Apple has delayed shipping their premium all-in-ones for at least two weeks until they can figure out the cause of the 27-incher’s common graphic woes.

Although it takes a pair of eyes bereft of soul not to slaver at the 27-inch iMac’s gorgeous chassis, users have been complaining since October about numerous issues affecting their new machines, including flickering displays and jaundiced screens. The problems, at first blush, appear to be related to faulty ATI graphics cards, with the delay in shipment to resellers related to Apple preemptively replacing those cards before shipping out their host machines.

It’s good to see Apple scrambling to fix the problem, but it’s potentially sad news for anyone who hoped to unwrap a 27-inch iMac on Christmas morning.

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[via, image Boy Genius Report]

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About the author

John BrownleeJohn Brownlee is news editor here at Cult of Mac, and has also written about a lot of things for a lot of different places, including Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, Gizmodo, Kotaku, Lifehacker, AMC, Geek and the Consumerist. He lives in Cambridge with his charming inamorata and a tiny budgerigar punningly christened after Nabokov's most famous pervert. You can follow him here on Twitter.

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Posted in Hardware, News, Top stories |

  • KSB

    hmm mine has been shipped on the 9 september, and is on it’s way. Hopefully it’s not one of the effected ones :/

  • mstew201

    I have been waiting on my replacement since November 12th. I have already had my delivery date pushed back two weeks once.

    Has there been any report or speculation as to what graphics card they are replacing the faulty ATI with?

  • clearSam

    let’s blame windows 7 and Microsoft.

  • Charli

    i have seen a couple of dozen of these 27 inch machines. about a half dozen were custom orders and none of them have shown any issues of any kind. makes me wonder if the issue isn’t the computer but a faulty batch of cards. might not be that many in truth but I could see Apple sending everything they have back rather than risk anymore going out and now they have to wait for a new batch to come off the line.

  • Pipppetto

    I’m sadly tied to a big reseller (European, Mediaworld) in my country because of a hefty Amex voucher to redeem; if not, I’d surely ordered from Apple store to ensure getting myself the most updated iMac available.

    I’m not sure right now if my 15 November order will be shipped before January; only Dual Core models are available after such a long wait, in very limited quantities.

    Just hope when I’ll finally get mine, I’d have not to struggle with (unfair) Apple’s guarantee policies – they hardly admit often worldwide known defects.

  • マシュマロ

    Haha, i like the “Blame Windows 7″ idea.
    Maybe the screen is allergic to the hard drive or software…or maybe even the hard ware. (<– Joke) Allergies are hell on a Macintosh. But, whatever the cause i still dislike Windows.
    I'd have to see the problem before i could find out what it is, so i don't know.

  • tony torres

    I order mine on dec 31 and still its waiting in the factory 4 days ago I had a status change from not shipped yet to prepared for shipment, so I am guessing it would leave by the end of this week, and guess what it hasn´t so meaning I am going to get an iMac that is going to take a month that I place the order. Not two weeks or 3 weeks.

  • Dazzler

    Ordered an i7 on January 13th direct from Apple, to be shipped today the 28th. No email or phonecall from Apple to apologise and shipment delayed until 11th of February to deliver the 17th! Not a good start to my Mac experience but happy to wait for the issues to be fixed rather than end up sending it back with faults…