Apple Inc. (AAPL) recently updated its ‘investor relations’ webpage to announce that the company will conduct a conference to discuss  Q3 FY12 Earnings on July 24. The live conference call will be held at 2 PM Pacific / 5 PM Eastern time. The call will later be available for streaming via QuickTime through Apple’s website.

AAPL has been reporting record quarters each year with sales of iPhone on the rise and outstanding sales figures of its tablet computer. During last quarter Apple Inc. reported revenue of $39.2 billion and quarterly net profit of $11.6 billion. The company sold 35.1 million iPhones, 11.8 million iPads, 4 million Macs, and 7.7 million iPods in the quarter representing 88% growth for iPhone sales and 151 percent increase for the iPad.

Apple’s CFO, Peter Oppenheimer, during the end of the conference call added,  “Looking ahead to the third fiscal quarter, we expect revenue of about $34 billion and diluted earnings per share of about $8.68.”

The third quarter revenue hasn’t seen introduction of any new hardware while on the other hand iPhone sales are expected to slow down as users anticipate the launch of next gen iPhone 5. However, the new iPad 3 has been added to a number of new countries and the Cupertino based company is expected to report impressive sales figures for its tablet computer.

Moving forward Apple is expected to see higher growth in its Mac hardware products as with the introduction of MacBook Pro with Retina Display the company has shown its commitment to remain aggressive in the notebook business. The availability of MacBook Pro with retina display on Apple’s online store moved up to 3-4 weeks shipping time shortly after its release suggesting fast adoption rate among users. Although, Apple hasn’t released any public sales figures for the next gen MacBook Pro.

Apple’s upcoming software releases for OS X and iOS are also worth mentioning as the OS of both the platforms continue to merge. Mountain Lion for OS X will be made available to users later this month exclusively from Mac App Store and iOS 6 is expected to be made available later this fall.

It’s been a while since Apple Inc. has updated the Mac Pro as only MacBook Pro and the MacBook Air have received substantial updates recently. On Monday, rumors arose that Apple may likely scrap the Mac Pro line altogether, with low sales and a high end price mark.

The Mac Pro has not been updated since mid-2010 and Intel’s delay of its Sandy Bride E Xeon processors have pushed that date to a point where it can no longer be under speculation. Now, AppleInsider reports that Apple is “questioning” the future of the Mac Pro line and may not release an update at all.

Although the Mac maker has reportedly developed a revision to the existing Mac Pro that may or may not see the light of day, people familiar with the matter said management as far back as May of 2011 were in limbo over whether to pour any additional resources into the product line.

According to these people, the consensus among sales executives for the Cupertino-based company was that the Mac Pro’s days — at least in its current form — were inevitably numbered. In particular, internal discussions were said to focus around the fact that sales of the high-end workstations to both consumers and enterprises have dropped off so considerably that the Mac Pro is no longer a particularly profitable operation for Apple.

With Apple’s desktop sales decreasing from 70% ten years ago to under 30% today, the MacBook line have become the focal point of Apple’s Mac sales, making the Mac Pro a small part of the lineup. Speculation of further updates on the desktop lineup suggests that a possible high end version of a Mac Mini or iMac could be in the works at Apple.

The Thunderbolt technology is key in eliminating the Mac Pro and bringing the same power and speed of the high end computer over to the lower iMac and Mac Mini. It is unclear when Apple is expected to eliminate the line or release updates, but it is likely planned for early 2012.

Apple announced today that Mr. Papermaster will be leaving the company. Apple did not say whether Papermaster was fired or left on his own accord but, regardless, it is clear that Apple is starting to clean house. The iPhone 4 antenna issues, after all, cost Apple a pretty penny forcing them to offer free bumper cases to anyone who had purchased an iPhone 4 and refund anyone who bought Apple’s bumper case.

Bob Mansfield, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Apple’s Mac hardware engineering will replace Papermaster. It is clear that this move was in the planning for a while since Mansfield was present in the news conference that Apple held to discuss the iPhone 4 antenna issues and not Papermaster. Most likely, the last several weeks have been spent going back and forth on a nice settlement.

Whether or not Papermaster will bear the full responsibility of these issues is yet to be seen. Most analysts agree that the iPhone 4 was rushed through testing and released to combat the large number of Android devices that have been released around the same time as the iPhone. Due to cell phone contracts, Apple has to release a new phone around the same time each year to make sure that users whose contracts are up upgrade to the new device and do not go elsewhere (if AT&T’s network was better, Apple would not be in this position but many people have switched to Verizon and Sprint due to AT&T’s network). That said, others at Apple were responsible for releasing the phone. What is clear is that we may never know what exactly happened in the weeks following the iPhone 4’s release. Apple is as secretive as they come.