The rumor comes from AppleInsider, which cites “people familiar with Apple’s roadmap”. The publication reports:

This will include new, ultra-thin unibody enclosures that jettison yesteryear technologies like optical disk drives and traditional hard drives in favor of models with lightweight chassis that employ flash-memory based solid-state drives, instant-on capabilities, extended battery life, and rely on digital distribution for software and media.

“They’re all going to look like MacBook Airs,” one person familiar with the new MacBook Pro designs told AppleInsider. Meanwhile, existing MacBook Pro designs are expected to be phased out over the course of the year.

The late Steve Jobs was known for his focus on design, sometimes at the cost of functionality (see Antennagate). It sounds like design is still a vital part of Apple’s mentality under CEO Tim Cook so far.

The iPhone and iPad might be the sexier Apple products these days, but Macs continue to sell quite well too. Apple’s Q1 earnings report indicate that Mac sales were up 26%, having sold 5.2 million Macs in the quarter. In addition to that, over 100 million apps were downloaded from the Mac App Store in less than a year.

Interestingly, however, iOS has eclipsed Mac OS X in web market share, according to a recent study from Chitika.

This apparently applies even if you have emptied your trash, formatted the drive, or anything else to eliminate the data. It will also recover actual file names, as well as the data of said files.

Sounds magical.

They say it’s as much as 30% faster than the previous version of the software.

The software, launching at MacWorld iWorld will be available for attendees for $20, but will become more widely available on February 1 for $99.

There is a free download here on the company’s site, of what I assume is a trial version.

The company just released their Q4 earnings, and with the help of the holiday season, absolutely destroyed all expectations. Apple posted Q4 revenue of $46.33 billion, beating the expected figure of $38 billion. They also reported a record quarterly net profit of $13.06 billion.

Partly in celebration of these record numbers, and party to talk about the future, Apple CEO Tim Cook held a Town Hall with Apple employees Wednesday morning. Employees could attend in person or online via AppleWeb. Cook said in an email “we’ll review our record-setting results and discuss some exciting new things going on at Apple.”

But Apple employees were treated to another surprise, as Cook announced an incentive that will help them upgrade to the latest Apple technology for their personal use. According to 9to5Mac, Cook told everyone that soon, they will get $500 credits on new Mac purchases and $250 credits on new iPad purchases.

These will kick in sometime in June of this year with two catches: First, employees can only use the credit once every three years. Second, employees must have been at Apple for at least 90 days before they can use the discounts.

I guess Apple’s huge successes as of late are trickling down to employees. And if they keep selling iPhones faster than babies are being born, Apple employees can probably expect stuff like this to continue.

$500 off a Mac is a really nice discount. But Google had one of the best employee giveaways ever when they gifted brand new customized Galaxy Nexus phones to employees for the holidays.

Apple also announced iBooks Author, a Mac app that lets users create ebooks that include the full range of iBooks 2’s interactive features. It includes the ability to import videos, Keynote presentations, HTML or Java code, and create widgets like those found on the OS X dashboard. The software also makes it easy to create glossaries for ebooks. Clicking on a word creates a glossary entry for it, and allows the user to enter a definition.

Also part of the announcement was a new project called Life On Earth, an “attempt to recreate the biology textbook” by E.O. Wilson, professor emeritus of biology at Harvard University. The book will be available in the iBookstore chapter by chapter. The first two chapters are available now for free, while other “aggressively priced” chapters will be coming later.

Textbooks in the iBooks store are aimed at the high school market to begin with, and will be selling for $14.99 or less. Apple also announced partnerships with Pearson, McGraw Hill, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, which account for roughly 90% of the textbook market. Each company is starting with a range of basic textbooks available in the iBookstore

Apple also announced an app for iTunes U, its program for making university-level curriculum freely available. The service is currently used primarily for delivering lectures. The new app is meant to turn iTunes U into an entire course management platform. The iTunes U app allows users to track assignments, watch or listen to lectures, take notes, and read assigned materials. Six schools, including Duke, Stanford, MIT, and Yale, have had early access to the new iTunes U and used it to create over 100 online courses. What’s more, while iTunes U has, as the name suggests, been primarily focused on higher education, it is now available for K-12 schools as well.

All three apps – iBooks 2, iBooks Author, and iTunes U are live in the App Store right now, and all three are free. iBooks Author is a Mac app, while iTunes U is a universal iOS app. iBooks 2 is also a universal app, just as it has always been, but the textbook features showcased today are only available on the iPad.

Testing the support of Apple products in the office, GE began a program last year to replace some of their 330,000 PC’s with Macs; though only about 1000 Macs have been put into place. About two years earlier, a year after the iPhone was introduced, GE gave employees the option to replace their Blackberry with an iPhone. While the popularity of the iPhone is still growing, only about 10,000 out of 60,000 have taken the option.

A recent IDG survey reported that Apple products popularity in the work place is on the rise overall. In fact, 83% of businesses won’t consider buying anything but Apple brand at all. The same study reports that over 90% of the iPads being used, are used for business.

[Source: Cult of Mac.Com]

In an effort to uncover what the environment that maintains all this secrecy is like, Fortune Magazine’s senior editor, Adam Lashinsky interviewed several past and present Apple employees. What he found was a family oriented environment, hell-bent on letting newbies find their own way, with a cult-like value for secrecy.

To begin with, new hires are seldom told about the projects they’ll be working on for Apple. Sometimes a “dummy project” is discussed as a way to screen applicants before they are hired. Once you arrive at your new position, you are issued a computer however; the surprise is, in many cases you will be the one hooking it up. Also, you will be expected to get connected to this network on your own, both technically speaking and socially. Apparently, the idea here is that you would have to be tech savvy to be hired at Apple to begin with.

It is common for new hires to be assigned an “iBuddy”, someone outside your work group who can answer questions and get you up to speed on the norms and values of the organization. Next comes the privacy and security briefing. In this meeting new hires are explained the trust the company has placed on them to maintain secrecy about all new products, services, and proprietary information at Apple. Leaking details about critical items, they are told, will result in immediate termination.

Employees will not need to be informed of new projects however, as they will see the workspaces around them being transformed. Construction crews work diligently erecting new walls, installing privacy glass, and closing off areas inside the facility. Yes, it seems secrecy is a foundation of Apples value system.

As institutional as all this may seem, the physical workspace conveys a much different picture. Inside the network of office spaces and work areas lies a bright, sunny courtyard filled with green grass and trees. It surrounds special food stations selling everything from sushi and salads to meat and desserts. But these lunches are not free. As one employee recounts, “There is only one free lunch at Apple, and it’s on your first day”. Though food is fresh and reasonably priced.

Apple may be one of the world’s most revered companies, but we know very little about what goes on there or how operations are run on a day to day basis. Steve Jobs was once quoted, saying of the organization, ” I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t say it’s the most fulfilling experience in their lives, People love it…”.

[Source: Fortune Magazine]

That’s what Minecraft creator Markus Persson (Notch) wanted his fans to know when he announced on Twitter that the game had hit 20 million users.

If you’re new to the Minecraft craze, it’s a simple world-building game that tasks players to create anything and everything they want with the pieces of the world around them.

The game, while being available to play since 2009, only just officially launched as a complete product in November 2011.

Minecraft is a true indie success story of a small developer creating a truly innovative product that took the Internet by storm. The game has even found success with the mobile community, with Minecraft – Pocket selling over 700K copies.

Notch, always the joker, shared some more 20 million people facts to celebrate the occasion.

Are you one of the 20 million Minecraft players? If so, what do you like most about the indie darling? Have you created anything amazing?

Over the last few years, battery technology has emerged as the major limiting factor in the advance of smartphone technology. Apple’s iPhone has been constantly plagued by reports of poor battery life, going all the way back to the iPhone 3G. The iPhone 4S pays for its more advanced technology – namely Siri and its faster processor – with a surprisingly short battery life. Apple is rumored to have a software fix in the works – iOS 5.1 is expected to help with battery issues – but there is only so much a software fix can do. The smartphone industry is in desperate need of a breakthrough in battery technology. Apple’s fuel cell technology may be just such a breakthrough.

The limitations imposed by current battery technology is mostly exclusive to smartphones. Apple’s notebooks – the MacBook Pro and MackBook Air – and the iPad tablet have all been largely immune to the kinds of battery life complaints leveled at the iPhone. The issue is one of size: the smaller a battery gets, the less power it will hold. The more technology Apple and other manufacturers try to cram into the shell of a smartphone, the smaller the battery becomes, and consequently the lower the battery life. Conversely, a battery that satisfied users’ power demands would increase the size and weight of the device, which would in turn lead to user complaints that the phone was too bulky. Fuel cells would go a long way toward solving this dilemma.

It is worth noting, however, that this is only a patent application. Apple has filed countless such applications as it has explored various technologies over the years, and not all of them have panned out. At present, all this means is that Apple is exploring the possibility of using fuel cell technology in their devices. So, don’t expect next year’s iPhone to suddenly be sporting fuel cells in place of traditional batteries. Indeed, we may never see fuel cells in Apple devices. But then again, we know that Apple is at least exploring the technology, so don’t be surprised if in a couple years Apple announces a phone that you only have to charge once a week, instead of once a day.

[Hat Tip: Mashable]

Two weeks ago we brought you a rumor that Apple was preparing a retina display iPad 3, possibly for a February launch (though probably not until later). Then came the rumor that Apple was preparing to put a retina display in its MacBook Pro notebooks. That report appears to have been confirmed – or at least supported – by the discovery of references to “HIDPI” in recent beta builds of the latest version of OS X Lion, 10.7.3.

To this mix we can add re-vamped rumors of an iTV, and the unlikely story of a late 2012 launch of the long-rumored but never-appearing iPad mini.

As to the iPhone, rumors have been trickling in for over a month about some of its new features. One report suggests that Sprint was preparing its LTE network for a 2012 iPhone launch, suggesting that unlike the iPhone 4S, next year’s iPhone (which should be called the iPhone 6, despite the fact that many insist on calling the iPhone 5) will be able to access the 4G LTE networks of AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint. Meanwhile, DigiTimes predicted late last month that Apple would be bringing NFC technology to the iPhone in 2012, a feature which had been rumored for the current-generation iPhone, but was not included.

Finally, fuel has been added to the fire by analyst Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray. Munster sent a note to his clients today saying that he expected significant changes in Apple’s product lineup in 2012, including a revamped “iPhone 5,” and only one third-generation iPad (i.e., no iPad Mini). Munster also said that he believes a redesign of the Mac computer line could generate tremendous amounts of revenue for Apple in 2012 and 2013.

Munster predicts that after the changes coming in 2012, Apple will sell 142-162 million iPhones, accounting for 50% of Apple’s revenue, in 2013. He also expects 66-70 million iPad sals, 24-26 million Mac sales, and 29 million iPod sales.

What kind of surprises do you think Apple has in store for next year? Let us know in the comments.

Of course, that sounds like a lot – and it is. But remember that the App Store (generic) has seen over 18 billion apps downloaded, and the current rate exceeds 1 billion apps per month.

The Mac App Store was announced back in November of 2010 and eventually released to the masses in January of 2011. After only one day in existence, Apple reported that the app downloads had topped one million.

Phil Schiller had this to say about the milestone:

In just three years the App Store changed how people get mobile apps, and now the Mac App Store is changing the traditional PC software industry. With more than 100 million downloads in less than a year, the Mac App Store is the largest and fastest growing PC software store in the world.

For app developers, it appears the the Mac App Store has been a huge help – allowing easy distribution and a wider reach than they could have imagined.

“The Mac App Store has unparalleled reach and has completely transformed our distribution and development cycle,” said Saulius Dailide of Pixelmator. “Offering Pixelmator 2.0 exclusively on the Mac App Store allows us to streamline updates to our image editing software and stay ahead of the competition.”

“In less than one year we’ve shifted the distribution of djay for Mac exclusively to the Mac App Store,” said Karim Morsy, CEO of algoriddim. “With just a few clicks, djay for Mac is available to customers in 123 countries worldwide. We could never have that reach through traditional channels.”