The entire MacBook Pro lineup will be redesigned “radically” this year to more closely resemble the MacBook Air, according to a new report from AppleInsider. Citing a source who says “they’re all going to look like MacBook Airs,” AppleInsider also suggests the MacBook Pro 15″ will likely be the first of the bunch to be redesigned, and will feature the removal of older technologies like the traditional hard disk drive and optical drives, in favor of digital distribution and SSD drives.

Assuming the latest report lines up with past rumors and reports, here is what we could possibly see from a refreshed MacBook Pro line this year:

• Thin and light MacBook Air inspired design
• Dual Core & Quad Core Ivy Bridge CPU’s with speeds up to 2.9GHz
• An ultra high resolution display at 2880×1800
• SSD drive to replace the traditional hard drives
• Removal of the optical drive
• Longer battery life
• Emphasis on digital distribution for software installation

Taiwanese trade publication Digitimes previously suggested that a new MacBook Pro (or Air) 15″ model may come in March, which would coincide nicely with the iPad 3 rollout. If the suspected high resolution display was included, it would also help to resolve the issue of designing for a retina iPad resolution on the currently smaller screen resolutions offered with Mac laptops.

If you haven’t set up iCloud and Find My iPhone yet, now is a good time to do so. This friendly reminder comes to us from a recent New York Times article, which details the story of a police officer using iCloud to bust an iPhone thief and return the iPhone to its rightful owner using none other than the free Find My iPhone service:

The ace up the sleeve of Officer Garland, an avid Apple consumer was something called “Find My iPhone,” a free 5.4-megabyte piece of software, or app, that he had on the iPhone in his pocket.

Punching in the victim’s Apple ID … he quickly determined by the location of a small gray phone icon on a digital map that the robber was near Eighth Avenue and 51st Street.

As Officer Garland and his partner drove there, the signal source shifted, closer to Eighth Avenue and 49th Street. There, a man later identified by the police as George Bradshaw, 40, of New Lots, Brooklyn, stepped outside a Food Emporium.

Officer Garland pushed the “Play Sound” button on his phone. Instantly, a pinging beep — not unlike the sound of a submarine’s sonar — began emitting from Mr. Bradshaw, 20 feet away.

The victim later identified the robber and got her iPhone back.

So have you configured iCloud and Find My iPhone yet on all your Apple gear? It’s easy to do, read our guide on setting up iCloud and follow the instructions below to enable the specific Find My iPhone (or Find My iPad and Find My Mac) feature. You’ll need iOS 5 or later on the iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, or OS X 10.7.2 or later on the Mac.

Setting Up Find My iPhone (or iPad)

You will need an Apple ID, iOS 5 or later on an iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch, and iCloud setup.

• Launch the Settings app
• Locate and tap on “iCloud” – if you are asked for an Apple ID you haven’t setup iCloud yet
• Near the bottom of iCloud settings, look for “Find My iPhone” and switch to “ON”, allow the app to use location services

It’s that easy to turn on, but you’re not quite finished yet because you will want to also install the Find My iPhone app for iOS. The Find My iPhone application is a free download on the iOS App Store, and lets you locate the iOS devices or Macs on a map, send messages and pings to the devices, and even remotely wipe them of their data.

Setting Up Find My Mac

Assuming you already have iCloud enabled in OS X 10.7.2, setting up Find My Mac is very easy:

• Launch System Preferences
• Click on “iCloud”
• Click the checkbox next to “Find My Mac” and then click “Allow”

The Mac will now be accessible via the iOS Find My iPhone app in the device list, and can also be pinpointed on a map using the iCloud.com website.

Apple has released iBooks Author, an easy to use app for Mac OS X that lets anyone create interactive multi-touch books for the iPad, these can be published on the iBookstore or iTunes U and offered as free or paid titles.

iBooks Author should be a big hit with both small and large publishers, teachers, and anyone else who wants to become a published eBook author. While the original aim is the educational market, made obvious by all six templates being textbooks, iBooks Author really has much wider appeal and could very well start an independent iPad book publishing craze on the iBookstore just like the App Store did years ago for apps. I’ve been playing around with the app all morning and it really is nice, with surprisingly powerful tools put into a simple to use interface.

iBooks Author is a free download and requires Mac OS X 10.7.2 or later and iTunes 10.5.3 or later:

• Download iBooks Author from the Mac App Store

One unfortunate obstacle for publishing that is beyond Apple’s control: ISBN numbers. ISBN’s are a series of numbers sold by a monopolistic organization who charges a highly inflated $125 for a single number, or sells them in packages at $1000. These numbers required to sell a book through the iBookstore (or anywhere else for that matter). Other than that, there are no fees attached, but Apple does take their customary 30% of each book sale to provide the iBooks service and store.

If you’re interested in the iBooks publishing program, don’t miss the iBooks Author Gallery and check out Apple’s FAQ on the matter.

Recently we posted a Mac museum collection that featured an iMac using wallpaper that made it appear like you could see right through to the logic board. It turns out these images are from iFixIt, the company that likes to tear down Apple hardware.

In the process of documenting their teardowns, iFixIt also has taken high resolution images that work great for wallpapers, giving the illusion that there is no screen on the device, and instead making it look as if icons and windows are floating directly atop circuitry. It’s a cool effect, and they have a variety of freely available native resolution wallpapers in this style for the iMac, iPad, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, and even the Apple external Thunderbolt display.

• Find them all on iFixit.com’s blog or check out some more images below

If you don’t care about showing the exact hardware for your device, they all make great wallpapers in general. My favorites have to be the iPad and iMac, although the Thunderbolt chip is nice too:

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The Apple Support Profile page provides an excellent dashboard to check technical support history, status, and warranty information for all registered Apple products under ownership. Assuming you have used the same Apple ID (email address) for all purchases and registrations, you’ll find every Apple item you’ve bought and registered here, including Macs old and new, iPads, iPods, iPhones, and more.

• Check your own Apple Support Profile – Apple.com

After logging in with an Apple ID, click on any item to get more information about it, including:

• Serial numbers and model numbers for all Apple products
• Coverage details
• Registration status
• Phone tech support eligibility
• General warranty coverage information (same as this)
• AppleCare warranty extension eligibility
• Past cases and repairs history
• Status of support cases and repairs

Remember, to take full advantage of the Apple Support Profile, be sure to always use the same Apple ID when registering new products.

This is an extremely useful site for tech support, troubleshooting, and general ownership purposes, be sure to bookmark it. Nice tip from @MacGeekPro.

Apple is rumored to be working towards releasing retina display equipped MacBook Pro’s in the second quarter of 2012, according to a new report from the Taiwanese trade publication Digitimes. Citing upstream component sources, the displays are said to be 2880×1800 pixels and become yet another competitive advantage for Apple’s portable lineup:

While the prevailing MacBook models have displays with resolutions ranging from 1680 by 1050 to 1280 by 800, the ultra-high resolution for the new MacBook Pro will further differentiate Apple’s products from other brands, commented the sources.

Earlier in the fall, Digitimes also suggested that a MacBook Air 15″ model would be released next year, but there is no indication that it would carry the same 2880 x 1800 pixel display.

Hints of Macs with retina displays have existed for a while now. Earlier in the year, we pointed out that wallpapers in Mac OS X Lion are 3200×2000 resolution, greater than any currently shipping Apple hardware. Additionally, many icons in OS X Lion are 1024×1024 pixels, double what they were in previous Mac OS X releases.

Finally, persistent iPad 3 rumors suggest the device will feature a retina display. One could guess that for Apple to release a retina equipped iPad, there would also have to be Macs with equal or greater screen resolutions available to adequately develop retina iPad apps on.

In 1991, astronauts took a Macintosh Portable aboard Space Shuttle mission STS-43, amongst other things, it became the first computer to send an email in space. A slightly less historical aspect is this fairly entertaining video clip from that mission, demonstrating the Macintosh Portable’s disk ejection system, which works perhaps a little too well in zero gravity.

“…We’ve got a phenomena that we’ve noticed since we’ve gotten into orbit here. The automatic disk ejection system that the Mac has, as you can see when we get rid of these disks, we’re going to have to pay attention to where they go.”

Watch the video, it’s well worth the 15 seconds.

Heads up to @AppleSpotlight for the find

Component suppliers have informed DigiTimes that Apple is already gathering pieces to a 15″ ultra-thin notebook that is set to debut as early as the second quarter of 2012.

While DigiTimes cautions they don’t know if the new laptop is a MacBook Pro or MacBook Air, Apple openly promotes the current MacBook Air lineup as “the future of the notebook”, and a MacBook Air 15″ would be an excellent compliment to the product lineup.

Assuming a MacBook Air 15″ followed the weight difference (0.58lbs) of the existing 11″ and 13″ models, a theoretical 15″ model may weigh in at 3.54lbs.

On our personal wish list for such a machine would be 8 GB of RAM, 256 GB SSD standard with a 512 GB SSD option, 1680×1050 or higher resolution, a discrete GPU, and Core i7 processors at 2.5GHz or above, while still retaining the stellar battery life that all of Apple’s devices are known for. A built-in coffee maker and personal assistant would be nice too, with the former being unlikely but the latter a possibility through the rumored Siri integration in future versions of OS X.

Will Elder Scrolls V Skyrim run decent on your Mac? If your Mac is relatively new (2009 models and up) the answer is probably, but before you go jumping into Bootcamp, installing Windows on another partition, and buying the game, let’s check to be certain that it will run on your hardware, and run at an acceptable rate for that matter.

First up, here are the general Skyrim system specs for those who are savvy enough to take this information and make a decision on that alone:

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Did you hate the sharp case edging on the MacBook Pro? They’re gone in the new models, instead there is a minor rounding of the newest MacBook Pro series case edges. While this may seem insignificant it’s actually a fairly big deal for anyone who is accustomed to the previous MacBook Pro’s sharp corners, which could be downright uncomfortable after extended use.

If this seems unimportant, keep in mind that some users actually went ahead to file their MacBook edges with nailfiles or otherwise to smooth out the edges themselves (see link, or video below).

In search of a good picture to demonstrate the difference, I stumbled across Marco Arment – the Instapaper guy – mentioning his new MacBook Pro 2011 vs the old one (shown up top), and low and behold he points out the same rounded edges. On the left is the previous MacBook Pro and on the right is the new 2011 model year, the difference is subtle, but apparently makes quite a difference in longterm use.

We’ve received a few emails about this change, the most recent from Rieky W:

I’ve just notice that my brand new macbook pro has a new edge profile. It is not as sharp as previous macbook pro, it’s comfortable to place my wrist now.

I know the sharp edges have prevented some users from upgrading or using the MacBook Pro’s longterm, so the corner adjustment may be important enough to sway a future purchase decision for some individuals, and is therefore worth mentioning.

Oh and here’s the popular video that showed users how to file the edges on an aluminum MacBook Pro themselves:
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