Tick Tock: Where Is iTunes 11 and Where Are The New iMac's?

Back in September at the iPhone 5 launch, Apple announced that iTunes 11 would ship in late October and then at its press event in October they announced that the stunning new 21.5″ iMac would be available in November, while the beautiful 27″ iMac would be available in December. Well, October past and there was no iTunes 11, so we were then told that iTunes 11 was pushed back to a November release date. Ok, so here we are on November 26, 2012 with no iTunes 11 and no new 21.5″ iMac available for purchase.

What gives?

This isn’t the first time Apple hasn’t delivered with iTunes. Last year, Apple promised that iTunes Match would be available to everyone at the end of October, however, come November 1, 2011 iTunes Match hadn’t launched yet. However, even though iTunes Match was delayed to the public, developers still had early access to it at the time. Right now, developers don’t even have access to iTunes 11. Which makes you wonder: are we in for an extended wait?

Now even if iTunes 11 is delayed further, that doesn’t bother me nearly as much as the new iMac’s being potentially delayed until 2013. What would concern me most about a delay of that magnitude would be that the loss of holiday sales could result in a tremendous hit on Apple’s balance sheet. And despite AAPL being the latest darling of Wall Street, if they don’t meet or exceed street expectations again it’ll be tough on the stock.

If you take a look at past product delays from Apple that were a result of manufacturing issues, the most recent issue I can think of is the White iPhone 4 fiasco back in 2010. The only other (somewhat) recent Apple hardware delay that I could remember was the Unibody MacBook Pro 17″ delay back in 2009. Other than that, it usually doesn’t happen.

While I realize Apple still has four days to keep their promises, I thought it was worth taking a look at this situation. I’m hopeful that Apple will deliver, but I guess we shall see.

What do you think — are we in for more delays?