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.

So I think the buzz surrounding AMD revolves around price point, especially since AMD has been “ultrathin” for a long time now, offering miniscule sized components since early 2009. In other words, they have been ready for a awhile, the opportunity to be featured in an ultrathin notebook is just something that has yet to come to light.

For the consumer it means the anticipation of a product that competes directly with the Intel equipped Ultrabooks, but is less expensive. Now remember, Ultrabooks are designed to compete against the MacBook Air, and save consumers a lot of bread. So, buyers will expect any AMD equipped Ultrabook knockoff’s to be significantly less expensive than an actual Intel equipped Ultrabook.

Is this going to happen? And if so, when? And, will it actually be cheaper? The answer is, I don’t know. AMD’s new ultrathin 17mm Trinity processors are on their way to the market and ready to be used. There is no telling who will jump on the opportunity to use them in an Ultrabook competitor or how soon it will be.

All joking aside, four years ago today, Steve Jobs unleased the MacBook Air onto the world at Macworld.

The first MacBook Air was very innovative for its time. The innards fitting into the size of the Air was impressive and still is today, even with Ultrabooks gunning for its market. It featured an 80GB 1.8-inch hard drive, a compact motherboard with a 1.6 GHz Intel Cord 2 Duo processor and GMA X3100 graphics processor. It also featured a 13.3 -inch LED-backlit glossy display, 2GB of DDR2 SDRAM, full backlit keyboard, 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1, USB port and Micro-DVI port. I’m not an Apple fan, but even I’m impressed that they fit all that tech inside of a laptop that was only 19mm thick.

The first model was somewhat controversial though as it lacked an onboard DVD drive. Jobs explained it away by saying that the world was moving to wireless and things like DVD drives were a thing of the past. The company did offer an external DVD-drive for those who wanted it though.

The hardware wasn’t without its problems though as the early versions were plagued with overheating issues and wireless connectivity problems. The price was a little steep for a lot of consumers too as it launched at $1,799.

Apple has come a long way since then when they introduced the current model of the MacBook Air in 2011. It featured either a Core i5 or i7 processor, solid-state drive storage and an Intel HD 3000 processor. The pricing had gone down significantly too with the 11.6-inch model being priced at $999 and the 13.3-inch starting at $1,299.

For those who want to relive the magic of four years ago, you can watch the unveiling of the first MacBook Air by Steve Jobs below.

The Taiwan-based supply chain for Apple products will begin shipments of new 11.6-inch and 13.3-inch MacBook Air models featuring Sandy Bridge platform and Thunderbolt interface in late May for launch in June or July, according to makers in the supply chain. While Apple’s PR representatives in Taiwan have neither confirmed nor responded to the report, it has long been understood that Apple always keeps silent about its new products not yet launched, the sources emphasized.

Main supply chain makers for the new models remain about the same as for the existing MacBook Air, with Quanta Computer solely responsible for assembly, Catcher Technology supplying casings, Auras Technology a main supplier of thermal modules, Shin Zu Shing supplying hinges, and Simplo Technology and Dynapack supplying batteries, the sources pointed out. However, none of the makers have confirmed their participation in making new MacBook Airs.

Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference goes down on June 6. “At this year’s conference we are going to unveil the future of iOS and Mac OS,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “If you are an iOS or Mac OS X software developer, this is the event that you do not want to miss.”

It seems reasonable that the new Macbook Air might make an appearance here.

Earlier this month, Apple announced its new iMac with next-generation quad-core processors, graphics, and Thunderbolt I/O technology.

Last month, Apple revealed in its second-quarter earnings report that it had sold 3.76 million Macs (28% YoY growth).

The New MacBook Air

The new MacBook Air gives up the physical hard disks in favor of Internet services and solid state flash storage. "We’ve taken what we have learned with the iPad—solid state storage, instant-on, amazing battery standby time, miniaturization and lightweight construction, to create the new MacBook Air. With its amazing responsiveness and mobility, it will change the way we think about notebooks," says CEO Steve Jobs. 

This ought to compete directly with machines running Google’s Chrome OS. 

FaceTime Comes to the Mac

FaceTime for Mac lets Mac users video call iPhone 4 and iPod touch users (with iOS 4) as well as other Macs. It requires Mac OS X Snow Leopard, and can be downloaded here. 

"FaceTime makes video calling to or from mobile devices easy for the first time," says Jobs. "We’ve sold more than 19 million FaceTime-ready iPhone 4 and iPod touch devices in the past four months, and now those users can make FaceTime calls with tens of millions of Mac users."

The addition of FaceTime to Macs will no doubt inspire plenty of iPhone users to switch to Mac if they are currently using PCs. The feature has been one of the most popuar of the latestr iPhone release. It’s certainly been the main selling point from the company’s marketing campaigns. 

Apple says there are over 19 million iPhone 4 and iPod Touch users with access to FaceTime. 

Mac OS X Lion

The new operating system is Apple’s 8th major OS X release. The company says it’s inspired by many of the iPad’s software innovations. It comes with the Mac App Store for desktop apps, Launchpad, which serves as a home for the user’s apps, and Mission Control, which provides a new way of viewing everything that’s running on the machine, and to instantly navigate anywhere. 

"Lion brings many of the best ideas from iPad back to the Mac, plus some fresh new ones like Mission Control that Mac users will really like," says Jobs. "Lion has a ton of new features, and we hope the few we had time to preview today will give users a good idea of where we are headed."

Mac App Store

The Mac App Store is like Apple’s existing App Store for Max OS X. You can still purchase apps with an iTunes account and they will download and install in one step. App updates will be delivered through the store. It will actually be available for Snow Leopard in the next ninety days, and will be included as part of Lion. 

iLife 11

The new iLife gives iPhoto a new look, makes it easier to edit videos in iMovie, and provides new features for GarageBand, which helps users improve playing and create songs with "Flex Time" and "Groove Matching".

"iLife is widely regarded as the best suite of ‘Digital Life’ applications in the world, and iLife ’11 makes them even better," says Jobs. "iLife now makes it easier than ever to create books and letterpress cards, make amazing movie trailers from your personal videos and post them online, and make your band sound far better or teach yourself piano or guitar."

The suite is free with all new Macs, and costs $49 for an upgrade.

So place your bets, people – will Apple and its investors find this acceptable?  The 16 percent stat comes from Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster, so although he talked to just 20 resellers, it’ll be somewhat hard to refute.  Also, Munster added that about 60 percent of those resellers are seeing less initial demand for the Air than they did for the 13-inch MacBooks two years ago.

On the other hand, everyone (see the 176 comments on Katie Marsal‘s article) can recognize that the Air is expensive, and Apple couldn’t have expected people to choose small computers over their mortgage payments.  Furthermore, the iPhone price cut probably made some folks cautious, and sales of the Air could still take off.

The stock market currently appears to agree with this second line of thinking; Apple is down 0.66 percent at the moment, but the Dow is down 0.88 percent and the Nasdaq has dropped a full 1.04 percent.  All without any statements from Apple, by the way, so no damage control has taken place.

In related news, Walt Mossberg has been eyeing Lenovo’s ThinkPad X300, which appears to have some advantages over (and shortcomings against) the Air.