The new iPad: specs, release date, video, and more

Americans, Europeans, and many others have already gotten their hands on the new iPad, and now Apple is bringing it to 21 more countries in the next few weeks. On Friday, April 20th, the iPad will arrive in South Korea, Brunei, Croatia, Cyprus, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Malaysia, Panama, St. Maarten, Uruguay, and Venezuela. April 27th will see another round of releases, as the iPad debuts in Colombia, Estonia, India, Israel, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, South Africa, and Thailand. The tablets will be sold both through Apple's online store and authorized resellers.

Apple's suggested retail prices are the same as what it announced last month, with 16GB Wi-Fi models starting at $499 and 16GB 4G models starting at $629. Apple's also making sure people know that its LTE isn't going to work in any of those countries: "4G LTE is supported only on AT&T and Verizon networks in the US and on Bell, Rogers and Telus networks in Canada." After some confusion in Australia, the UK, and Sweden, hopefully Apple won't end up having to offer any more refunds.

The moment Tim Cook took the stage and announced the new iPad on March 7th in San Francisco, I immediately started brainstorming on my review for the device. There are clear challenges in comparing generational, iterative products like the iPad — especially when the devices themselves look nearly identical. Looks, of course, are really only half the story with the new iPad (side note: the name is just "iPad," though Apple seems to be using "new" quite liberally). In fact, looks may not be the story at all.

While the device does appear to be physically nearly identical to its predecessor, there are significant changes in the product. For starters, it's boasting that outrageous Retina display — its 9.7-inch screen delivering a whopping 2048 x 1536 resolution. The new iPad is also equipped with a greatly improved camera on its back (a 5 megapixel shooter, not unlike the one featured on the iPhone 4), new 4G LTE options (for both Verizon and AT&T), and a considerably more powerful processor.

If you're hoping to get your hands on Apple's new iPad on launch day but haven't already ordered, an Apple Store line may be in your future. Cupertino's US online store is now listing a March 19th ship date for all 9 variants of the new Retina Display-equipped slate, a full three days after the device's release. It's an almost expected occurrence at this point, with Apple having run into the same issue with the release of previous iOS devices in recent years. While no specific details have been given on in-store availability or customer limits as of yet, Apple's brick-and-mortar locations have traditionally had stock to sell on a first-come, first-serve basis — but you may want to watch out for any spontaneous Galaxy Note-inspired musical numbers.

After some earlier confusion, Apple has clarified that buyers of the new iPad outside the US will be able to provision the device on AT&T LTE when they're in the States:

There'd initially been some question as to which 3G-capable SKU — the AT&T LTE or Verizon LTE model — would be sold in European countries, but it now appears that Verizon's model is a carrier exclusive, at least for the moment. Meanwhile, Europeans traveling to the US will be able to provision their iPads on AT&T's 4G network if they've got access to an appropriate AT&T SIM.

We're getting reports out of the UK this morning that the new iPad won't be meeting its scheduled delivery date of March 16th, "despite [Apple's] best efforts and those of [its] shipping partners." Our tipster was told that his updated delivery date is the following Tuesday, March 20th — but a quick search of Twitter suggests that a good number of people are being told the 21st as well. It's unclear exactly what led to the delay; as with many Apple products, it's reasonable to suspect that the company is producing and shipping the iPad at full tilt and it can only fly so many cargo planes out of Hong Kong per day, but that's little consolation to those who've been put on hold.

Thanks, theeoin!

As you're no doubt fully aware, Apple has announced a new iPad with support for 3G and 4G LTE networks for Verizon and AT&T in the US. Sprint, however, was left out in the cold. The lack of support was not unexpected, the iPad 2 never came to Sprint despite the fact that Apple does make a version with a CDMA radio. However, the iPad 2 predated the deal to launch the iPhone 4S on Sprint, so it wasn't entirely crazy to think that the new one could have made its way onto the carrier. Sprint is also working on launching its own LTE network and has even has LTE phones announced for later this year, and obviously LTE is an important feature on the new iPad.

So what happened? Sprint's not saying, telling Fierce Wireless only that "Sprint is not a carrier for Apple's iPad products. [...] We have nothing to announce at this time." Still, it's not hard to read between the lines. Sprint had to put out a significant amount of cash and guarantees to Apple in order to secure the iPhone 4S, a device that required minimal work to get on the carrier. LTE radios, however, are a different story. Apple already needs to make separate versions of the iPad for AT&T and Verizon because of their different LTE bands, Sprint's LTE network would likely require a third given Sprint's spectrum for LTE.

Remember a few hours ago, when Apple claimed its new A5X chip had four times the graphical prowess of Nvidia's Tegra 3? As you might imagine, Nvidia doesn't intend to simply let that be. The graphics firm told ZDNet that without specific benchmarks to back up that claim, "Apple has a very generic statement" right now, but that Nvidia would certainly be purchasing a third-generation iPad on March 16th to test those claims for itself. Citations or no, if the new iPad does indeed have twice the graphical potential of the iPad 2, the "4x" quote might not be too far off in certain applications: AnandTech ran the Tegra 3-powered Transformer Prime against the iPad 2 in a run of GLBenchmark, and found a few performance differences.

We also reached out to Nvidia briefly, which provided this rather amusing statement: "It's nice to hear Apple compare themselves to Tegra 3. It truly underscores the importance of graphics, which is what we've been saying all along."

Well that didn't take long. It's been barely an hour since Apple wrapped up its event introducing the new iPad and a suite of apps to take advantage of that Retina Display — and the company already has video of the event up for streaming online. We're collecting all of our hands-on impressions and videos for you here, but if you'd like to see Tim Cook and company for yourself, you can head over to Apple's own website. If the company stays true to form, you can expect the same video to show up as one of Apple's video podcasts as well.

As rumored, Apple has updated its AppleCare program for the iPad, now offering a full AppleCare+ warranty that's mirrors its offering for the iPhone. The AppleCare+ program adds an additional two years on top of the existing one-year warranty, but more importantly it gives customers coverage for up to two "incidents of accidental damage" with a $49 service fee.

As with all AppleCare products, you'll need to sign up within 30 days of purchasing your iPad. The fine print, as ever, provides the caveats you'll want to be aware of before you visit the Genius Bar for your "Accidental Damage from Handling" (ADH) coverage:

The new iPad's display has an insane 2048 x 1536 resolution, and here's what that Retina display looks like up close. We've got shots of icons, a popular website, and a pair of photos, and comparison shots with an iPad 2. The difference is astounding even without blowing the pictures up to full resolution, but we've done that too. Check out the gallery below to see just how far Apple's 9.7-inch panel has come.

We've just had our first in-person experience with Apple's latest and greatest slate... and it feels good. It goes without saying that the screen on the device is absolutely stunning — while we haven't had a chance to look through every possible app on the new iPad, the retooled stock applications and icons really do pop on the Retina Display. Just as when we first saw the iPhone 4 display, the New iPad's 2048 x 1536 screen is stunning to behold. Simply put, there's no other product like it on the market.

When looking at webpages or books, text just jumps off the screen. It's almost a bit surreal how clear it is. Games look great, though most titles haven't been tweaked for the new resolution. What's most impressive is that the hardware driving the display doesn't hesitate at all. We didn't see any lag or weirdness when zipping around in apps.

Apple has just announced a refresh to the iLife suite, including iMovie. The update adds more advanced editing and planning tools. You can now cut fancy trailers as you're recording video, and iMovie will include nine stylized genre templates, which also include custom soundtracks from famous composers like Hans Zimmer. Movies can be shared in 1080p resolution to the Apple TV using AirStream, and also shared to YouTube, Facebook, and Vimeo.

Apple's showing off lots of software that's now optimized for the new iPad's Retina display, and an updated version of iWork is among them. Pages, Numbers, and Keynote for iOS have all been updated, still cost $9.99 each, and are free updates for previous purchasers. Apple says these new updates are coming out today, but the old versions are still on the app store as of the moment. Phil Schiller went into minimal details on what changes besides Retina display support were made, and from the looks of Apple's iWork for iOS pages on its site, it seems like there aren't any major consumer-facing features aside from support for the higher-resolution display.

Update: Version 1.6 of Pages, Keynote, and Numbers for iOS 5.1 are now available in the App store. In addition to Retina display compatibility, each app now supports "stunning" 3D bar, line, pie, and area charts. Keynote has a number of other changes, including nine new builds and transitions, as well as animations for the previously mentioned new chart types. Pages now supports the landscape keyboard for iPhone and iPod touch, but otherwise it and Numbers don't have any more new features.

At Apple's event today in San Francisco, after announcing the new iPad, the company also debuted a version of iPhoto for iOS, filling out the iLife section of the App Store a bit more. The new app is a much more powerful way to manage your photos on your iPad, and includes some serious editing functionality. It has a shelves-style look for managing your photos, and lets you quickly add effects, do some retouching, and even beam pictures from device to device. The $4.99 universal app is available today, though you'll need at least an iPad 2 or iPhone 4 to use it.

It's a multitouch-heavy app, letting you edit and manipulate images up to 19 megapixels — the app can automatically detect and correct horizon lines, and you can quickly edit shadows, exposure and the like all using multitouch. You can also compare your edited photo to the original quickly, a feature we love in the OS X version of the app. Changing white balance is as simple as dragging your finger around the screen, and any edit you make can be done specifically to one tiny section of the photo, or the entire picture. There are a bunch of effects in iPhoto for iPad, too, non-destructive tweaks to your photos. Most are just simple color tweaks — Black & White, Aura, Vintage, and a few others — but all seem to work well and smoothly.

Apple has released new updates for GarageBand to along with the new iPad. Priced the same as the previous generation at $4.99, it has support for the Retina Display and some new features as well. The new features include "Smart Strings" for playing instruments, iCloud support, a note editor, and a cool feature called "Jam Session." Jam Session allows up to four iOS devices to work together over WiFi or Bluetooth to create music in real time. Apple played a brief video demonstrating the feature during its keynote as as you'd expect, it looked like it worked quite well.

True DJs and musicians might be most excited about some of the new sharing features. In addition to iCloud sync, music can be uploaded directly to YouTube or SoundCloud — the latter of which is a killer feature for indie artists.

The just-announced new iPad will be offered in an LTE version, marking the first time that Apple has offered a true 4G-enabled product. Of course, LTE support requires carrier partners with LTE networks, and both Verizon and AT&T are predictably on board — both with their own versions of the device (they've got different LTE networks that use different bands). In Canada, Rogers, Bell, and Telus will be offering it as well.

Of course, there'll be 3G fallback for when you need it; LTE is still in fairly limited deployment, so this'll be the primary mode for many users. On HSPA+, the new model supports both 21Mbps and 42Mbps dual-carrier modes — no slouch, needless to say.

Traditionally, Apple has been content to stay a step behind the latest processor technology, and reap the power efficiency benefits, and that's just what we heard it would do again... but we dreamed of a quad-core CPU. Today, right now on stage, the Cupertino computer company unveiled a mobile chip with quad core graphics. Not quite the same thing, but it doesn't hurt. This is the Apple A5X.

The A5, if you'll recall, had a integrated PowerVR SGX543MP2, a dual-core graphics solution that did quite nicely in games, but recently the PlayStation Vita used the quad-core version of the same, the SGX543MP4+. We've got a hunch that's what you'll find inside the A5X as well. It's also worth noting that Samsung builds quad-core ARM Mali graphics into some of its existing chips, like the one in the Galaxy S II. Also, core count alone isn't an indication of performance, because the Nvidia Tegra 3 has 12 graphics cores, and Apple claims the A5X has four times the performance of the Tegra 3... whatever that might mean. (The company didn't say what benchmarks it tested with.) Apple says the new graphics abilities will be responsible for pushing pixels to that new 2048 x 1536 resolution Retina Display, and also handling duties like stabilization for the new iPad's 1080p camera.

Apple just announced the new iPad, the latest in its popular line of tablets. As expected, it has a Retina display, with a resolution of 2048 x 1536. That's good for a pixel density of 264ppi, which means you can't distinguish individual pixels when held at 10 inches -- the standard Apple uses for the Retina moniker. Existing apps will automatically take advantage of the higher resolution, but Apple's optimized all of its stock apps and is obviously encouraging developers to do the same.

In addition to the new display, the new iPad also features an A5X processor with a new quad-core graphics processor, which Apple claims is four times as fast as the Tegra 3. There's also a new iSight camera, which is the same as the camera built into the iPhone 4S: auto-exposure, auto-focus, 5 megapixel backside-illuminated sensor with 1080p stabilized video. That's a huge upgrade from the iPad 2, and a massive jump over competitive tablets, which all have terrible cameras. The front camera for FaceTime remains at VGA. There's also a new microphone icon on the keyboard for voice dictation, which works in several languages.

Apple's brand new iPad has just launched with a Retina display! The resolution is 2048 x 1536, quadrupling that of the first and second generation iPads. The new 9.7-inch iOS tablet keeps the same screen size as its predecessors, but now comes with just over 3.1 million pixels, resulting in an impressive 264ppi density. You might not think that's quite enough to merit Apple's designation of a Retina display — one dense enough to make individual pixels indistiguishable — however Phil Schiller explained that the iPad is expected to be held at a distance of 15 inches away from the user's eyes, qualifying it for that title.

All stock iOS apps have been updated and optimized for the new resolution and text will automatically be rendered accordingly. Apple already pulled off this sort of a resolution jump with the move between iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4, so we imagine the transitional process for developers updating their apps will be no different with the new iPad.

As per usual, Apple kicked off its iPad event with some facts and figures on the growth of iOS and the iPad over the last year. For starters, there's now 315 million iOS devices out in the marketplace in the market overall. Overall, there's 585,000 apps in the App Store available for those devices, with "over 200,000" optimized for the iPad interface. iCloud has been successful since its launch, as well — there's already 100 million iCloud users, up from the 85 million that were using it at the end of Apple's financial Q1.

Apple's "post PC" devices (iPad, iPod, and iPhone) make up 76 percent of the company's revenues, and the company sold a whopping 172 million of those post PC devices in 2011. As for its retail presence, there's now 362 Apple stores around the world and 110 million people visited these an Apple store in Q4 of 2011.

The 5.1 update is available now, with Japanese language support for Siri rolling out in the coming weeks.