New iPad release as it happened

The internet has been swirling with rumours about what lies behind Apple's latest launch.

Since Digital Spy first received a mysterious invite just a week ago, there's been excited talk of an iPad 3, an iPad HD and an update to iOS5. Plus much speculating about an improved quad core processor, pricing changes, memory upgrades, a more powerful camera and the kind of stunning HD Retina display that we've become accustomed to on the iPhone 4S.

Follow our live blog right here, where we will be covering the announcement as it happens at the Yerba Buena Centre for the Arts in San Francisco at 10am PST (6pm GMT). Digital Spy will be reporting live from Apple's London event in Kings Cross.

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19:25Back to Tim Cook to wrap up the presentation. "Only Apple could deliver this kind of innovation in such a beautiful and integrated way. It's what we stand for. Across the year you are going to see a lot more of this kind of innovation. We are just getting started."

Wow - a cliffhanger of a sign off from the Apple CEO. What else are we in for in 2012? 'Next phase' Apple TV? A robot-unicorn that can cook?

I'll be leaving you now to hopefully get hands on with the new iPad. We'll be bringing photos, video and a full review to Digital Spy as soon as possible. Thanks for reading!

19:20More big news: iPad 2 price drops to $399 start point.

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19:19I joke - but this really is the most advanced display you'll have ever seen. It's truly, truly stunning. This may transform the e-book market as the pixels are so small your eye can't even see them. Everything becomes razor-sharp. And all this with a monstrously fast web connection and an A5X processor that's like an end of level boss tucked away inside a device that's so light and thin it shouldn't be possible.

19:15Uh oh. Another 'emotional video' with soft indie-rock. A close up of some yummy fruit. The word "magical" in the voiceover. I'm... going to cry.

19:12Sharing photos on the new iPhoto looks fantastic. It looks like a super easy and intuitive package to get the very best out of photos. It's crazy to think how some 'single gesture' picture edits might have involved a dozen mouse clicks in the past.

19:01iPhoto for iPad is announced.

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18:59The new iPad is great. There's no doubt. But what the hell is its name? The iPad 3? The iPad HD? Apple are sticking with 'the new iPad'.
The new iMovie on 'the new iPad' is much more advanced: editing and graphics become even easier and impressive.

18:57In a similar vein Apple are now showing some hip young things playing a song together with iPads and Garage Band instead of instruments. If this ever happens in real life you have permission to shoot me.

18:53Can iPad gaming really compete with a meaty console controller in your hands though? I always find the 1-finger tapping and swiping of complex iPad/touch screen gaming painful and awkward after a while. Maybe that's just me. Post your thoughts below, I'd be interested to hear them.

18:51Apps are now being shown off: a jet fighter game controlled by gestures from NAMCO. A design/art package titled 'Sketchbook Ink' that takes advantage of the awesome graphics power of the new iPad. "Retina display is luscious" says the art app chap. Both apps available shortly and exclusively on iOS.
Epic games are about to bring their latest app 'Dungeons' to the table... Mike Capps, President of Epic says "Apple has raised the bar today for mobile computing."

18:46As an aside, it does feel very sad to have Steve Jobs missing today. His presence is sorely missed, even if the Apple guys are doing a great job of presenting the new iPad. It just isn't the same. Like a Bourne movie without Matt Damon.

18:43So: retina display, 1080p HD, prices frozen. LTE 73mbps connection, A5X processor with quad core graphics, 5MB camera with iSight. That's a worthwhile update.

18:41Prices remain the same as the iPad 2 before it. Pre orders start today and the device will be in stores from March 16 in the UK, US and Canada. 23 more countries will get it shortly afterwards.

18:39Battery life now: an Achilles' heel for Apple in the past. The new iPad will continue to have a 10 hour battery life, or 9 hours on 4G.

Weight is just 1.4lbs. Cost will be......... $499.

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18:38Video buffering looks like a thing of the past thanks to LTE (once your provider is equipped to work with it, that is), going on the Apple presentation right now.

In the US, two different versions will be available across AT&T and Verizon.

18:354G LTE announcement: the next generation in wireless is here. And it looks super, super fast (73mbps to be precise). Great if you live in the US. Of less interest to UK fans where providers simply aren't ready for this yet.

18:33The iPad keyboard now has a microphone icon - you can talk if you don't want to type. You just speak the punctuation to include it: And the iPad will transcribe it all (comma), it's really nice (fullstop).
That said, does anyone actually use Siri on their 4S iPhone? And if they do, does it work consistently? (I can only bark "No! The WEATHER" so many times at mine, I find.)

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18:31The video camera also comes with image stabilization. And temporal noise reduction.

18:30Photos being shown do look remarkable. A 5 megapixel iSight camera comes built in.

Video recording is now full HD resolution with 1080p camera.

18:29New camera announced! Anyone playing iPad Bingo right now must be squealing with joy.

18:284 times more pixels on the screen needs much more power. Cue the A5X chip to provide the grunt force within the slick device. The A5X boasts 2 times the graphics performance of the A5.

It's like Usain Bolt racing Ronnie Corbett.

18:26264 pixels per inch on the new display. That's a lot - more than the human eye can individually distinguish.

18:24Retina display IS happening on a 9.7 inch screen. "Until you see it you can't understand how incredible this is."

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18:23New iPad announced! Woo hoo!

18:22Tim Cook now leading up to something big. What could it be? He seems pretty confident he's about to deliver a slam dunk.

18:17Apple: "We sold 15.4 million iPads in Q4 last year alone." More than any PC manufacturer sold of their entire range, apparently.

18:14Photo Stream and the new Apple TV are linked: pics taken on your iPhone will appear on your Apple TV. The improved resolution makes pictures look 'incredible'. What other exciting adjectives can we expect from Apple tonight?

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Genius is now built into movies too - users will get film recommendations just as they get music tip offs currently.

18:11More pleasing news: as of today iCloud supports movies. And movies and TV in the iTunes store will support 1080p in 'amazing quality'.

New Apple TV also supports 1080p, with a new streamlined interface.

18:09Apps now. There are now 585,000 apps in the app store. As we know, a lucky Chinese customer downloaded the 25 billionth app recently.

18:08Now onto iOS - the "world's most advanced operating system. We sold an astonishing 315 million devices last year."

Cook now onto Siri as the big screen plays the robot assistant's voice in various languages - "a whole new way of interfacing with your phone. Customers say they love it."

Big news: Siri launches in Japanese today!

18:05Apple declaring they sold 172 million post-PC devices last year, making up 76% of their revenues. An immense achievement and a truly immense cash flow...
Roll VT! Apple now showing their traditional 'emotional marketing video' with lots of soft indie-rock and grinning children from various cultures. Aw...

Now tell us about the iPad!

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18:03The connection here in the London leg of the Apple launch isn't great but we'll keep updating you as much as we can. Anticipation is super high right now.

18:02Forbes reckons that a successful new iPad launch and expected sales uplift for tablet product range could push Apple's share price to a staggering $700. The firm's stock is currently trading at around $533.

18:02Apple CEO Tim Cook is on stage now and talking: "Apple has it's feet firmly planted in a post-PC world."

17:57Global Equities has predicted that the new iPad will get a "subdued reaction" from consumers when it goes on sale unless global gasoline prices fall "by 25%". The analysts seem to think people will not flock to buy the device if they can't afford to drive to stores. But why not take the bus, guys? or better still, order online and get someone else to do the driving.

17:50As well as Samsung (see 17.31 update), Apple is also today facing a renewed legal challenge in China over the iPad trademark. He Jun Vanguard Group, the consultancy representing eight creditors of the now insolvent Proview Technology, says that Apple's deal to buy the IPAD name in China is void. This forms part of a long battle over the trademark between Apple and Proview, that temporarily halted online sales of iPads in some parts of China last month.

Speaking to the Financial Times , He Jun's vice-president Huang Yiding said: "The essence of the fight over the IPAD trademark is a fight between Apple and Proview's eight creditor banks."

17:38Interestingly, Apple has today launched a Catalogues category in the App Store, hinting at a potential interactive section to coincide with the new iPad launch.

The new category, which is yet to appear in the All Categories listing on iTunes, may suggest Apple is to make use of the expected Retina screen on the iPad 3/iPad HD with the greater prominence of super high-resolution catalog apps.

Speaking to Apple Insider, Joaquin Ruiz - the chief executive of the catalog app Catalog Spree - said: "The impact of the iPad in the shopping and publication industries has been massive.

"Many thousands of apps have been added over the last two years to address the consumers need to interact with their favorite books, magazines and brands within an iPad optimized experience.

"Adding an app category is not something that Apple does lightly and we believe Apple's decision reflects the importance of this use-case in the Apple App Store ecosystem."

17:31Samsung Electronics has decided to celebrate Apple's big iPad launch day by lodging a law suit against the firm in Seoul, this time regarding a claim that the iPhone 4S and iPad 2 allegedly infringes three of its patents.

"This lawsuit is separate from the proceedings filed against Apple in Seoul in April 2011 regarding infringement of telecommunications standards-related patents," said Samsung in an emailed statement.

"Samsung will continue to assert its intellectual property rights and defend its investment in innovation in order to ensure our continued growth in the mobile industry."

Saucer of milk, table Samsung...

17:17Also, Verizon have apparently been installing 4G in some Apple stores in the US, heightening rumours of LTE capability. However, this man is saying that the impending iPad 3 won't have it.

Bill Dudley, Group Director of Product Management & Operator Services at SMS operations firm Sybase 365, told Digital Spy: "I predict that the new iPad 3 will not support LTE. I think, at this point, Apple would rather wait for further operator deployments."

Dudley believes that Apple will wait for the rumoured iPhone 5 this summer to go 4G, but will he be right?

17:12Interestingly, an iOS hacker from the Chronic Dev Team says iPad 3 will have 1GB of RAM rather than the previous model's 512MB. This supports the rumours of quad core processor, and rather thrillingly would open up HD gaming.

16:46One of the really hot rumours currently is that the new iPad's screen will employ swirling with rumours about what lies behind Apple's latest launch.

Under the spotlight is Finnish tech startup Senseg, who have developed 'haptics' technology that turns tablet displays into 'feel screens'.

Here's The Guardian's tech editor Charles Arthur to explain: "By using 'tixels' generated by electric fields from elements embedded around the screen, it can make areas of the screen feel rough, ridged or rounded - and change those just as the screen pixels can change."

16:34The invite for the launch event, at the Yerba Buena Centre for the Arts in San Francisco at 10am PST (6pm GMT), said that Apple has "something you really have to see - and touch".

It is expected that Apple chief executive Tim Cook will lead the presentation, which will be live streamed at a UK press event in London's Kings Cross (at which Digital Spy will be in attendance and bringing you the news as it happens).