Late last month, it became obvious that some retailers across the United States were seeing shortages of Apple’s 27-inch iMac. This sparked speculation that we could possibly see a new model within the next month or so. Today this rumor has again been strengthened, with half of Apple’s retail stores across the U.S. not having the model in stock.

As seen in the above image, shipments are still days away.

The lower end and more popular 21.5-inch iMac model is only out of stock in seven Apple stores across the U.S.

Macrumors had this to say about stocking of the 27-inch model:

Our survey of Apple’s retail stores shows that 120 out of the 249 U.S. locations are currently out of stock of the base 27-inch iMac model, with 135 locations being out of stock of the high-end configuration. Most of the stores are quoting a pickup date in the range of September 4-7, indicating that Apple will be able to deliver new orders for pickup fairly quickly, although some locations are quoting availability for as far out as September 11.

It seems unlikely that we will see a retina iMac in the next month or so, simply because of the price. The 15-inch retina MacBook Pro is priced at over $2,000 for the base model, so a 27-inch display like this would have a monumental price.

However, Apple could release a refreshed iMac, featuring Intel’s latest Ivy Bridge processors, and possibly USB 3.0.

How likely this is isn’t yet known, but if you are in the market for an iMac, waiting for a little while is advisable.