Apple retail store employees probably shouldn't plan a vacation anytime soon. According to AppleInsider, the company has placed a restriction on vacation days for a three-week period starting at the end of January.

Does this mean that Apple is preparing for a significant round of product updates? For months, there have been reports in publications like Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and Fortune that have said Apple is preparing to release a Verizon CDMA iPhone in early 2011, however none of these reports have proven true so far.

There are other products that are on track for an update as well, including MacBook Pros and the iPad. The rumor mill has been busy churning out news of a next generation iPad for quite some time now. Reports have said that the iPad 2 would include such features as dual-facing cameras for video chatting, retina display, a larger speaker, and a USB port.

A case and an aluminum prototype for the iPad 2 have been spotted at the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES), going on this week in Las Vegas. If it is legitimate, the case, produced by Chinese company Dexim, would confirm the two cameras, larger speaker, and the device's slimmer design.

AppleInsider said that Apple has held onto its "overstaffed holiday personnel at many retail stores" in anticipation of these product launches. The report also said that Apple has been wary of granting vacation time for all of January and into February.

Whether the product update rumors are true remains to been seen. It was initially reported that Apple would break its traditional update cycle of one year and produce a second generation iPad in time for the holidays. However, that time passed and the iPad 2 is still just a figment of shoppers' imaginations.

All of the Verizon iPhone rumors that have reported a specific release date for the CDMA device have been wrong thus far. Although the phone could be coming in the next few months, these rumors have surfaced pretty much monthly and have yet to come true.

Despite Apple's embargo on vacation time, as usual, retail employees are kept in the dark about what products the company is planning and when the launch will be.