This morning, Apple silently upgraded their MacBook computers, giving them faster speeds and a graphics boost to keep them competitive until Intel’s next-generation Ivy Bridge chips launch next year. The 13″, 15″ and 17″ models have all received processor and graphics update, and are available now with free shipping.

I’m more than a little skeptical of news that the MacBook Pro will get refreshed before the end of the year, especially since the rumor comes from on an unnamed source. However, “people with proven insight into Apple’s future product plans” state the new models will have faster processors, but little else. If you want the latest and greatest, I’d wait a month or two just in case this rumor turns out to be true.

Rumors about an ultra–thin 17 inch prototype also in existence would point us to the latter, which would mean the current MacBook Pro form factor, less than 3 years old, is likely on the bubble. And if that’s the case, we’re presented with the issue of how much of the current MacBook Pro’s formidable feature set and I/O versatility will survive compression into an upsized MacBook Air form factor.

There’s been much discussion since last Thursday about Apple dropping Nvidia graphics in favor of Intel’s in-house HD graphics in the new Sandy Bridge MacBook Pros. Conventional wisdom is that Intel’s closely integrated HD 3000 IGPU is markedly inferior in performance to the erstwhile 320M, but is that really the case? Not according to xBitLabs’ Ilya Gavrichenkov.

In the end, Thursday’s MacBook Pro update announcement turned out to be pretty much what I had expected and predicted, although less than many had hoped. However, one new feature I hadn’t anticipated for this refresh of the pro portables was the addition of Intel’s new high-speed I/O interface technology (aka “Light Peak”). I knew Light Peak was coming, but didn’t imagine that it would arrive before summer or fall at the earliest until the rumor mills broke the story this week.

While we all wait for Apple to refresh the online Apple Store (down at press time), the new MacBook Pros are already showing up at the MacBook page on Apple.com. As expected, Apple is offering new models of the 13-, 15-, and 17-inch MacBook Pros. There are five new MacBook Pro models in all, and their prices ranges from $1,199 to $2,499. Here’s a quick look at the specs of the new MacBook Pros.

Today, Apple shipped sealed pallets of products to some dealers. The pallets have strict warnings against breaching the integrity of the sealed pallets, which can mean only one thing: a product refresh. And the products most likely to be refreshed this week based on rumors and the current shipping time frames on the Apple Store online are the MacBook Pros.

With the online Apple Store down, it’s becoming quite likely that a refresh to the MacBook Pro range is only hours away. And it seems as though AppleInsider sources have managed to get the basic specifications of the upcoming laptops before their official announcement. Of course, without signed confirmation from Mr Jobs, these are only rumors, but quite solid rumors at that. If their sources are correct, here’s what we could be seeing later today…

Support files for unreleased MacBook Pro computers have been discovered in the latest devloper build (10C531) of Mac OS X 10.6.2. The new build was seeded to developers just a few days ago, and includes a few references to the unreleased 6,1 and 6,2 MacBook Pro models. The latest available MacBook Pros carry a 5,x model number, and were last updated in June. No rumors of MacBook Pro refreshes have surfaced recently, although previous reports have suggested that Core i7-based processors could be integrated into MacBook Pros by late 2009 to early 2010.

In the first of what will be plenty of WWDC announcements, Apple has released an update to their MacBook Pro lines that will be shipping starting today. The new line (15-inch and 17-inch) has a built in SD card slot as well as a better display, and the extended, revolutionary built-in battery that was currently only in the 17-inch MacBook Pro. Although this battery isn’t replaceable, Apple has said that it will get up to 1,000 charges, meaning that you won’t cause harm to the environment like other battery manufacturers (five year life). The backlit keyboard will now be standard, and there is a 13-inch model of the MacBook Pro as well. Most of the machines come with 4GB RAM standard.