As had been predicted several weeks ago, Apple has confirmed an iPad launch event for March 7th at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. The event will begin at 10am, which we will take as Pacific Standard Time, meaning that the event will begin at 6pm here in the UK, so for Apple fans, there's just enough time to rush home from work.
HEXUS has discussed details of the iPad 3 many times and in truth, until the launch of the tablet in just over a weeks time, many details still remain speculation. As a re-cap, it's near enough certain that the iPad 3 will feature a new 2,048 x 1,536 Retina display, however it's also believed that the tablet will gain a new, quad-core CPU, likely still based on the ARM Cortex-A9 and dubbed the Apple A5X. We suspect a bump to 1GB of RAM and a slightly modified case that looks to be thicker than the original iPad 2 but with a smoother bezel. The camera is also expected to receive the usual round of updates and there have also been rumours of a new mini docking port, with suggestions of a larger battery.
With so little changing, we have often questioned if this release will end up as the iPad 2S, on the other-hand Apple may just surprise us and announce that it has ported OS X to its iPad, hence the purpose of a new docking port, though this seems unlikely. There are also suggestions that Apple 'may' use this launch event to unveil a Siri-powered Apple TV product.
With competitor Samsung clearly holding back on a high-end tablet release and announcement of its latest Galaxy S III smartphone, this writer finds himself preoccupied with what the competition may hold and looks forward to seeing all the cards out on the table before making his next purchase decision.
