2012 is going to be an exciting year for Apple. Already, unnamed sources and analysts no one has heard of before are coming out with tall tales of what Apple products are going to be released and what market Apple is going to take over. Yet, who better to peer into the misty and unknown future than the writers at Appletell who have been following Apple for years?

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.

There have been many rumors lately about the Macbook Pro getting a slight increase in processor speed before the end of the year. First it was sometime in October, and now they’re saying it won’t happen until November. Most of the rumors are based on the current limited supply of MacBook Pros, but there are several reasons why this could be happening, not all of which are under Apple’s control.

Apple’s MacBook—their lowest end laptop at $999—has received a nice spec update this week. This new model contains a battery that Apple claims will provide a whopping 10 hours of battery life while running a 2.4GHx Intel Core 2 Duo procressor and Nvidia GeForce 320M graphics. Other than those updated specs, it is pretty much the same laptop it previously was. No design changes have been made, and it still only comes in the polycarb enclosure.

Steve Jobs certainly has a way with words even through his emails. While most of his random responses to the probably large amounts of emails he receives on a normal basis are no more than a sentence, they do say a lot. Furthermore, since they are coming from the Apple CEO himself, you know they’re accurate. When emailed from a worrying customer that Apple has been putting too much energy into the iPad and has forgotten about updating the MacBook and MacBook Pro, Steve Jobs urged him simply “Not to worry.”

MacRumors is reporting that it is highly probable Apple will use Core i7 mobile processors in MacBooks and MacBook Pros by Q4 2009. The new 32nm Arrandale Core i7s will still be dual core, but able to process 4 threads—saving more power thanks to the smaller fabrication process plus optimised processor features.

I recently wrote an article on Apple’s seeming lack of real innovation in the Mac market. After some consideration, I realized that all of their product lines have been rather stagnant lately: iPhone 3G was a small departure from iPhone design-wise, Macs took on a gray and black finish, and Snow Leopard is supposedly not introducing many new features. This leads me to believe Apple is preparing a new generation of computing.

Funny, I remember there being a MacBook update on Apple’s website last week. If you look there now, instead of an update, you’ll find this message. “We’re Sorry. We can’t find what you’re looking for.” Oh really? Apparently, the update hasn’t done any good, and in some cases caused harm to the notebooks to which it was applied. There are reports of unusual audio problems, screen flickers and it didn’t fix the Dual Link DVI adapter anyway. I’ve had strange display issues since as well. Keep your eyes peeled for another update; I have a feeling it’s on its way.

Today, Apple pushed an update for Mini DisplayPort equipped MacBooks across the board. The update addresses issues that users who purchased the Dual-Link DVI adapter and actually tried to use it. They also improved the playback of HD video with the NVIDIA graphics in each of these machines. The press release follows.

Apple managed to sneakily update their sub $1,000 notebook hardware. And when I say sub $1,000, I sadly mean the $999 white polycarbonate shell notebook that Apple has kept around. Although the processor has been kept at 2.0GHz and there is no option for a backlit keyboard, the updates still manage to make the cheapest Apple notebook that much more tempting. The laptop now comes standard with 2GB DDR2 RAM, an NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics card and a 120GB hard drive, as well as the wonderful Mac OS X software we all know and love.