Months and months of speculation have now come to a head with Californian company Apple hosting a special event in San Francisco in which various pieces of news have been announced, one being the much anticipated iPad tablet.

With as new CEO Tim Stevens pointed out some 100 rival tablets being released in the last 12 months, the new iPad slate had to be a device that stood out against competition, and judging by the news Apple have certainly proved this.

Specs for the much longed for “newest device” as its called, will include a 9.7-inch high resolution Retina Display giving 3.1 million pixels with a resolution of 2048 x 1536, that’s a million more pixels than HDTV. In relation to the tablet’s size, it will be 9.4mm in thickness, therefore making it slightly heavier.

The processor up until now has been a much talked about topic, but from the horses mouth we can tell you that the new slate will include a A5X processor with quad core graphics, giving it compared to the Tegra 3 four times the performance. Apple fans will be pleased no doubt to hear that a physical home button will still be present despite many saying that it was rumoured to disappear.

New added on features for the iPad 3 include an ‘iSight’ 5MP camera with illuminated sensor with auto exposure and focus, 5 element lens with IR filter and ISP built into the A5X processor, 1080p video recording with the benefit of software stabilization to stop those of you with shaky hands! Voice Dictation has been included with the support of languages being English, UK British, Australian, French, German and Japanese, but not the new Siri as many had hoped. A new button on the keyboard has been announced being that of a ‘microphone,’ with battery life staying the same as before with juice of 10 hours.

4G LTE has been included this time upping performance and faster network speeds, with five carriers on- board being that of the two biggies AT&T and Verizon, Rogers, Bell and Telus, although separate devices will be needed for AT&T and Verizon although we have to point out that 3G ready will arrive on all devices giving the iPad 3 the reputation of having the most wireless bands of it’s kind. Battery life for 4G LTE will be 9 hours as oppose to the 10 with existing apps being updated and optimized.

Available to pre-order from today, the Apple iPad 3 will be rolled out on March 16th in colours black and white. In terms of price, the 16GB will set you back $499, with the 32GB at $599 and the 64GB at $699 with 4G prices being slightly different. Additional features will be included, check out some of our other new iPad articles following on from Apple’s event.

Is the new iPad with its specs as exciting as you expected? Will you be pre-ordering yours for March 16th, if so which model, colour and from which carrier?