In an announcement surprising absolutely no one, Apple pats itself on the back and unveils the 3rd iPad-- now with an iPhone 4-style Retina display, upgraded A5X SoC and "iSight" rear-facing camera.

The biggest feature, of course, is the Retina display. It handles an impressive 2048 x 1536 resolution (264 dpi), and Apple claims it has 44% more colour saturation than the iPad 2. Powering the device is the Apple A5X system-on-a-chip-- it lacks a quad-core processor (as earlier rumours suggested), but does carry x4 graphic cores. Apple claims the A5X has "four times the performance" than the Nvidia Tegra 3... but gives no mention of benchmarks used.

The rear-facing camera also get an upgrade-- the iSight camera consists of a 5MP sensor, 5-element lens, IR filter and ISP built-into the A5X chip. The same setup as the iPhone 4S, in other words. It records 1080p video and comes with image stabilisation and noise cancellation.

Connectivity comes through 4G LTE. Apple says the device has the "most wireless bands" ever, making it 3/4G ready world wide.

The iPad 3 is hitting the Apple Stores in the UK, France, Germany, Switzerland, Japan and the US on March 16 2012 (Apple's biggest rollout yet), with other markets to follow afterwards.

As to other Apple announcements, iOS receives an update to version 5.1 while iTunes gets to store movie purchases (as well as music) on the cloud-- ideal for use with the new Apple TV. No, not the mythical iTV/Apple TV set... just an update on the Apple STB. Like the iPad 3, the new Apple TV will also launch on March 16 2012.