In what can only be described as a never ending story these days, Apple’s inability to get the 27” iMac (that the company announced in November) shipping without delay has taken an interesting turn. The latest from the land of fruit is that the ATI graphics cards that are being used in the 27” version of the iMac are causing the problem.

According to our moles, the 27” iMac uses the ATI 4670 or 4850, depending on the configuration. While our moles describe the problem as “faulty” ATI video cards, we hear that the actual problem is an intermittent flickering on screens that have a yellow hue on them. We hear that there has been some breakage of cards during transit, as well.

The entire mess is said to have gotten so bad that Apple has actually put a two-week hold on shipping any additional iMac units while their engineers work on the problems. While we can’t confirm that ATI’s crew is involved in getting to the bottom of the issue, we have to think that they likely are involved in some capacity.

In the meantime, Apple continues to take orders for the 27-inch version, but according to a retailer that we talked with, he says that he would find it unlikely that any order for a 27” iMac would arrive before the end of the year.

Graphics troubles are not new for Apple, as they have had problems most recently with NVIDIA-powered MacBooks back in 2008. Apple (as they normally do) is not talking about the situation, but we do suspect that some sort of a technical bulletin will be released within the next two weeks detailing the problem and fix for those who have a 27” unit already and are experiencing the issue. We suspect that the fix will be to have the graphics card swapped out with another one. Sounds like a no brainer, at least from where we sit.