Apple iPad 3 and more

Last night (UK time) Apple announced the widely anticipated iPad 3, there were some rumors thay it may have been called the iPad HD but these turned out to be false. I was particularly interested as I still have the original generation iPad; I didn’t deem the enhancements for the iPad 2 as enough to justify the upgrade. That is changing though as there are two applications that I want to use that won’t run on the original iPad – Photoshop Touch and (according to the App Store) iPhoto.

So what are the new features of the iPad 3 over the iPad 2:

• Retina Display, this is now a 2048 x 1536 hires display that has more pixels than a 1080p flat-screen TV. The colour fidelity has also been improved.
• A5X Quad-core Graphics chip, this is needed to drive the retina display but will also means awesome graphics for games.
• iSight camera, the rear camera has been upgraded to a 5MP camera and it uses some of the same technology that is used on the iPhone 4s camera. This also offers 1080p video recording.
• 4G Wireless, well in the UK this doesn’t mean much as we don’t have any 4G yet. They have, however also upgraded the various 3G technologies that are available such as HSPA+ and DC-HSDPA. The wireless also now supports personal hotspot for sharing of the wireless bandwidth.
• Siri Dictation, the power of Siri is available for dictation (only).

Needless to say I will be getting one of these puppies (64GB + 3G).

Apple also released iOS 5.1 with the following features:

• Japanese language support for Siri (availability may be limited during initial rollout)
• Photos can now be deleted from Photo Stream
• Camera shortcut now always visible on Lock Screen for iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS and iPod touch (4th generation)
• Camera face detection now highlights all detected faces
• Redesigned Camera app for iPad
• Genius Mixes and Genius playlists for iTunes Match subscribers
• Audio for TV programmes and films on iPad optimised to sound louder and clearer
• Podcast controls for playback speed and a 30-second rewind for iPad
• Addresses bugs affecting battery life
• Fixes an issue that occasionally caused audio to drop for outgoing calls

My iPhone 4s is currently downloading iOS 5.1, I’ll do the iPad later.

Apple also released iTunes 6 to support the new iPad and 1080p films. This also means that my Apple TV (2nd generation) needs to replaced if I want to watch the 1080p films.