The Apple rumor mill is rumbling to life again this morning on reports that the company may be bringing its vaunted retina display, first introduced with the iPhone 4 last year, to it’s MacBook Pro line of computers. Citing sources “in the upstream supply chain,” DigiTimes is reporting that Apple is planning to launch the new line of MacBook Pros sometime in the second quarter of 2012. The display will be 2880×1800, a huge jump over the current line of notebooks, which come with either 1680×1050 or 1280×800 displays.

This rumor follows several other reports related to Apple products lately. Last week we covered rumors that the next generation of Apple’s iPad would be releasing next year with a retina display. Meanwhile DigiTimes reported last month – again citing supply-line sources – that the MacBook Pro would be getting a thinner MacBook Air-style chassis sometime in the second quarter of 2012.

Though this report is still just a rumor, it is true that the MacBook Pro line will be coming due for a refresh soon. Though Apple quietly updated the line in October to include more storage and memory, the computers themselves have remained unchanged for a couple of years.

The ultra-high resolution retina display is so named because it boasts a pixel density so high that from a distance of more than just a few inches, the user’s eyes are not physically capable of distinguishing individual pixels. It made waves when it was introduced with the iPhone 4 last summer, and almost immediately speculation began on which devices would be the next to get it. To everyone’s surprise, the next device turned out to be the iPhone 4S, released just a few months ago. It was widely believed that the iPad 2 would be getting a retina display, and rumors circulated that the company would be putting it in everything from MacBooks to iMacs soon. These recent rumors – about both the MacBook Pro and the iPad 3 – may signal the beginning of this long-awaited rollout.

[Source: DigiTimes]