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Unveiled in June, the new MacBook Pros are the first Macs whose screens are backlit using LEDs, which consume less power than standard LCD backlights - and do not contain mercury.

AppleInsider reports that while supplies are trickling into Apple's own stores, dealers have had thousands of units on back-order since June.

"In speaking to these dealers, Apple representatives have reportedly identified the new 15in LED backlit display panels as the root of the problem," the website says. "However they stopped short of indicating whether the hold-up is a result of an ongoing quality issue or simply supply constraints associated with the relatively new display lighting technology."

The shipping

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delays could have come at a better time, with Apple continuing to see a renaissance of Mac sales. According to the latest figures from IDC, its share of the US market grew 26.2% in the last year and Apple is now firmly established as the number four manufacturer behind Dell, HP and Gateway.

Meanwhile iPhone shipments appear to have caught up with demand. At one stage just two Apple stores had iPhones in stock, but according to both ifoAppleStore and BusinessWeek, supplies are now keeping pace with demand.

That is likely to concern IT managers at North Carolina's Duke University, where the number of iPhone users is so large that they have swamped the campus' wireless network. Between 100 and 150 handsets are trying to get access, freezing parts of the system for 10 minutes at a time, Bill Cannon, a Duke technology spokesman explained.

"The scale of the problem is very small right now," Cannon told AP. "But the more iPhones that are around, the more they could be knocking on the door for access."

Duke is working with Apple and its networking technology provider Cisco to locate the bottleneck in its system.