On Wednesday, at an invitation-only press event in San Francisco, Apple unveiled the much rumored new iPad, with HD display and support for optional 4G broadband network communication. It is set to go on sale March 16, starting at $499.

Taking center stage at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in South-of-Market in San Francisco, Apple Senior Vice President Phil Schiller said the new iPad redefines the category that Apple created with the original iPad. Schiller described the new iPad as having four times more pixels than the iPad 2,  with resolution so high that “Your retina in your cannot discern those individual pixels. The images on it look stunning.”

The multitouch device is built with the next generation wireless 4G and includes a 5-megapixel iSight camera, allowing you to shoot photos and 1080 HD video. The 3.1 million pixels in its retina display are made possible with the use of powerful A5X quad-core graphics, giving up to 44% greater saturation.

The new iPad will also be supported with significant upgrades to the previous iPad 2 iWorks and iLife apps— iMovie and Garagaband. But also introduced at the media event is iOS iPhoto, which will run on the two latest versions of the iPad, and the iPhone 4 or later.

Similar to iPhoto for the Mac, the mobile iPhoto app will allow users to manage, edit, and share photos via iCloud.

The new iPad will go on sale March 16, in the US, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Switzerland, Japan, Hong Kong, and a week later in 25 other countries.

Source: Macworld