iPad 3: Is it all it’s cracked up to be?

On March 7 technology giant Apple unveiled its latest creation that will no doubt send technology fans into an absolute frenzy, the iPad HD.

The iPad HD appears to be more of a re-evolution than a revolutionary new product, which the iPad was on its initial launch a few years ago. But with Microsoft set to launch their latest tablet, complete with full Windows 8 operating system, Apple had to come up with something to get their diehard fans back in store to buy their products.

Rumours surrounding Apple’s latest venture have been circulating for months and last night we discovered that the majority of them were in fact true.

The new product features a new screen resolution of 2,048 by 1,536 pixels, a new A5X chip with improved graphics performance, 5-megapixel camera sensor and the capability to run on 4G LTE networks once the service is available. The device can also be used as a wi-fi hotspot, much like the iPhone, if the user chooses to allow the function.

The HD device has the same estimated 10-hour battery life like the previous model, but this will drop by an hour if 4G is being used.

Certain rumours however fell flat on their face, such as the introduction of Siri, haptic touch feedback technology and the introduction of 128 gig storage, which was a little disappointing.

Overall the product does appear to be similar to the iPad 2 albeit slightly larger as it is now 9.4mm thick whereas the iPad 2 was only 8.8mm. This doesn’t appear to be too much of a difference though considering the improvements the company have made to its latest tablet.

iPad HD is set to go on sale on March 16^th in the US, UK, Canada, Hong Kong, Japan, Australia, Singapore, France, Germany and Switzerland.

It will be interesting to see how well the latest device sells considering the frenzy previous iPad launches have created. It has already lead to Apple’s share prices on Wall Street rising by 0.08% to $530.69 per share, so it looks like we will have to wait and see what happens.