Late Thursday, after weeks of frustrated and contentious posts to its web site, Apple officially acknowledged recent problems with its newly-released aluminum iMac computers and promised a fix as soon as possible:

“A small number of iMac users have made us aware that a recent software update issued by Apple can sometimes cause their iMacs to freeze, requiring them to restart their iMac,” an Apple spokesperson told Macworld News.

Various users have reported that the iMac becomes inoperable after various periods of time and in mixed circumstances. The computers apparently require a hard reset after the interface freezes, allowing the user to move the mouse around and to tab between applications, but little else to happen.

“We are tracking down the root cause of this bug, and will issue a software update which corrects it as soon as we can — most likely later this month,” the company spokesperson said. “We apologize for the inconvenience.”

If you've seen the issue on your end or have an opinion about this, let us know in the comments and forums.