Apple will completely revamp its MacBook Pro line of notebooks this year, according to sources familiar with the company plans for 2012. The new MacBook Pros are expected to feature an ultra-thin unibody design modeled after the MacBook Air and get a spec boost to Intel next-gen Ivy Bridge chips.

Citing a source familiar with the new MacBook Pro design, AppleInsider reveals that the new Air-like MacBook Pros will be phased in over the course of this year. The revamped version of the more popular 15-inch model will be introduced first, followed by the 17-inch model later.

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 are 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.

After Apple Made retina-displays a standard-resolution display by using it in the new iPad, the iPhone 4 and 4S, A new clue found within in the latest developer release of OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion) suggests that 2012 may bring us the "summer of Retina display Macs." A source with access to the latest Mountain Lion preview alerted Ars that double-sized graphics have popped up in some unexpected places, once again suggesting that Apple may be close to releasing MacBooks with high pixel-density screens.

One example comes from Messages, Apple replacement for iChat. While using the app under the second developer preview of Mountain Lion, some icons are erroneously displaying 2x resolution art. In the image below, the "audio chat" icon is a 2x version instead of the standard 1x version, according to our source.

"I would interpret it to mean that Retina [MacBook] is close; perhaps concurrent with the release of OS X 10.8," ARS source said.

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