After months of speculation and delays, new 21.5-inch and 27-inch iMacs finally went on sale today—the last possible day for Apple to meet the "November" deadline it gave itself back in October. Apple CEO Tim Cook told investors during the company's most recent earnings call that iMac supplies would be "constrained... in a serious way" throughout the rest of this year, so we've spent the morning calling around to some Apple Stores to get an idea of what supply is like.
We called five New York and New Jersey-based Apple Stores, as well as Apple's flagship Apple Store on Fifth Avenue in New York City. The company's store policy prevented representatives at any of the stores from giving us exact numbers, but both the Fifth Avenue store and one of the New Jersey stores reported that they had "more than a few" of both 21.5-inch iMacs in stock. The Fifth Avenue store, which is open 24 hours a day, had been selling the iMacs for several hours as of about 9:30am Eastern. The New Jersey-based store, however, said that while the iMacs were in stock, the store had not yet been "authorized" to sell them to customers, and they couldn't say when that would change.
None of the other stores we called had received their shipments of the new computers, though most of them said that they expected shipments to arrive at some unspecified time later today. "Everything's happening fast," one representative told Ars, before advising us to call back in a few hours.
As for the 27-inch models, we'll still be waiting for December, but according to both the representatives and the shipping estimates in Apple's online store, customers shouldn't have to wait until December 31 to get them: the larger-screened desktops are currently slated to begin shipping within two to three weeks, which means that some shoppers with a quick trigger finger may be able to get them before the holidays. If you don't need your 21.5-inch iMac today, Apple's online store currently shows a ship time of between one and three days.
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