Described by Apple CEO Steve Jobs as “a big bag of hurt”, the next iMac refresh will offer Blu-ray as an option in at least some models.

Now that Blu-ray has become the standard and has finally come down in price and is gaining at least some traction, Apple will start offering it in some iMac models in the next refresh. According to our sources, the move by Apple to add Blu-ray support is more about keeping up with technology.

As for the Blu-ray support, it will be added as part of the iTunes version 9 upgrade. This will be the first version of iTunes that will offer support to play Blu-ray content which, of course, is necessary in order to support the new Blu-ray drives on the iMac models.

As for what type of Blu-ray drive the company will offer, it is said that the company will start with a combo drive that offers only Blu-ray read support along with DVD/CD reader/writer support. Apple will likely wait till the prices falls on both the drive and writable media before moving to offer a Blu-ray writer.

It is suspected that Apple might refresh the iMacs yet this year, but the safe bet is that it will not happen till next year. The Blu-ray support, however, is said to now be confirmed for iTunes 9, according to our fruit flavored sources.