It's been two whole months since His Steveness (or, ahem, Time Magazine) first unveiled the new LCD-based iMac to a waiting world, and if the planet has changed since then, it's remained the same in one very crucial way: iMacs are still darn near impossible for dealers to get on their shelves. Sure, two of the three models are "now shipping," but as far as we can tell, most customers who actually have one in their homes either had placed a pre-order at the Apple Store shortly after the introduction or picked one up at one of Apple's own retail stores; most third-party resellers have amassed waiting lists for thirty iMacs and have received, say, four. A quick peek at MacReviewZone's iMac price tracker reveals that none of the major online vendors profiled has any in stock, and we don't expect that to change much for a while yet.

Clearly iMacs are harder to come by than a flattering photo of Steve Ballmer, but what's the hold-up? Well, Merrill Lynch claims it's a "radiation problem," other reports hint at some kind of firmware error, and now CNET says that an LCD panel shortage is messing things up-- but everyone agrees that some sort of production issue is obviously keeping iMacs tough to come by. How tough? CNET has some ugly numbers: distributor Ingram Micro "had nearly 3,300 unfulfilled dealer orders for the high-end model... but only 43 units in stock and 250 in transit from Apple, according to its March 4 report," constituting a backlog of "18.6 weeks." Between them, Ingram and Tech Data (the two major distributors that carry Apple products) "had received only 1,326 high-end iMacs by March 4." Yeeeooowwwch. There's clearly a lot of catching up to do, here.

Meanwhile, if you're in the market for a new iMac and you don't feel like waiting for four months to get your hands on one, right now it sounds to us like your best bet is to call every Apple retail store within driving distance and ask about availability, because apparently some stores have literally dozens in stock and ready to wheel out to your car once you fork over the requisite amount of cash. Given this fact, we're reasonably certain that iMac-starved resellers are even now grabbing pitchforks, torches, and noose-rope and preparing to descend upon Cupertino as an angry lynch mob (as opposed to those polite and well-mannered lynch mobs we see so often these days). Sounds to us like that whole "we promise, our retail stores won't have unfair access to product" thing needs a little work...