Apple has today released a new advert for the 3rd generation iPad called “All On iPad”. It runs though a bunch of tasks that you can do, ‘all on iPad’ – highlighting apps such as iBooks, FaceTime, Keynote, Square, Real Racing 2 and iPhoto.

Read it. Tweet it. Be surprised, be productive. Make a sale, make some lunch. Make a movie night. Play a game or an old favourite.
Do it all more beautifully with the retina display on iPad.

Apple previously released “This Good” and “Do It All” adverts for the 3rd generation iPad.

Apple has just issued a brief press release to announce that the new iPad will finally launch in China on Friday, July 20th. The recommended retail prices of the new iPad in China will match the current US prices at $499, $599 and $699 for the WiFi version (16 GB, 32 GB and 64 GB respectively) and $629, $729 and $829 for the WiFi + Cellular models (16 GB, 32 GB and 64 GB respectively). Meanwhile, from today the iPad 2 is available for $399.

Customers will be able to purchase the new iPad in China from the Apple Online Store, select Apple Authorized Resellers and by reservation from Apple retail stores. The reservation process will run daily between 9am and 12pm and begin on Thursday, July 19 and allows a customer to reserve an iPad for pick up the following day.

Apple® today announced the new iPad®, the third generation of its category defining mobile device, will arrive in China on Friday, July 20. The new iPad features a stunning new Retina™ display, Apple’s new A5X chip with quad-core graphics and a 5 megapixel iSight® camera with advanced optics for capturing amazing photos and 1080p HD video. The new iPad still delivers the same all-day 10 hour battery life* while remaining amazingly thin and light.

Apple’s iPad is iconic in design. Competitors try to emulate Apple’s success, but nobody can mistake the aluminum frame and its companion piano black or pearl white bezel for any other product. While it’s a product known for its distinct shape and size, the iPad’s character is only truly revealed when you power on its display and begin to explore the contained interface. With the Retina display, the new iPad is unlike anything you’ve seen before.

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Today’s one of those days when I can sit happily at my desk and know that the tech press didn’t win. Despite the mounting evidence, the alleged photographs of bits and pieces, and the last minute rumors of x-chip and y-feature for a gadget we seemingly knew everything about, Apple still managed to pull a fast one that was so obvious it makes even the most certain journalists curse under their breaths. iPad. You should have seen it coming right? Even the iPad 2 was simply referred to as the iPad on its aluminum shell. iPad. Even if it was just a little surprise, it’s a simple reminder that not even those with the best sources can fully beat Apple at its own game. As long as this continues to be true, I’m pretty sure that means Apple is doing alright.

With that said, let’s check out all of the great stuff Apple just launched.

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It seems like only yesterday when I took a wrong turn at a shopping mall and ended up waiting in line for some magical device I knew nothing about. Granted, there were lots of people wrapped around an Apple Store, but how was I to know Apple was launching a new iPad that was as thin as a pencil, had a faster processor, and could be individualized with those foldable Smart Covers? And if I could predict the future, it sounds like I’ll be waiting in some longish line again for another flat computer that has an even better display, an even faster processor, and surprise features that’ll dazzle us before the glow of a blue Apple retail shirt.

I already know most of you already have your wallets out. Some of you are checking the source code on Apple.com for any imminent hints, while the rest of you are furiously refreshing Apple’s store page. Although, I hope you’ll read our predictions instead (we’re half intelligent, half coffee-addled). But if you’re looking for the real skinny, we’re just going to have to wait for Wednesday. We’ll be here on March 7th: still rambling, still highly caffeinated, and probably drunk on iPad 3 rumors… or is it iPad HD? iPad 2S?

To find out what the name of the next iPad will be, tune in tomorrow at 12:30 pm EST when Don and I will be kicking things off early to answer your questions and engage in general mischief before the iPad event. Whether Apple livestreams the event or not, you’ll get all of our flavorful commentary and up to the minute information about the crazy stuff being presented on stage.

Don’t forget to refresh the MacStories homepage regularly tomorrow — the rest of the MacStories team will be writing articles as fast as these products and numbers and shiny things are being announced! If you can’t be in the now, you can always catch up with the announcements later in the day. Don’t worry — it’ll all be here.

Bookmark this page and set a date for Wednesday, March 7th, for our realtime coverage.

Apple Event Time Zones

13:00 — New York, New York
10:00 — San Francisco, California
08:00 — Honolulu, Hawaii
05:00 — Sydney, Australia
03:00 — Tokyo, Japan
02:00 — Shanghai, China
23:30 — New Delhi, India
22:00 — Moscow, Russia
19:00 — Rome, Italy
18:00 — London, England

Don’t see your city? You can use this link to get your exact time.

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At 10 AM tomorrow, Apple will begin the presentation of one of the most (if not the most) anticipated products in the company’s recent history: the iPad 3. Rumored to feature a Retina Display, improved graphics, and a better camera, the next iPad will have to build on the amazing success of the iPad 2 (where by “amazing” we mean “just look at those numbers“) whilst giving owners of the original iPad a reason to upgrade after two years. And with the possible implications behind the rumored new features, it looks like those who stood in line back in April 2010 will have more than one good reason to consider the Next Big Thing.

As a team, we typically refrain from reporting every single rumor that shows up ahead of an Apple product release, leaving our crystal ball and teardrop-shaped hats under the editorial desk. Having considered the variables behind a Retina iPad 3 in the past, however, we couldn’t resist this time — much like we did back at WWDC ’11, we had to get together (in a cozy Campfire) and share our March 7th Apple Event predictions. Our own Gabe Glick already explained why he thinks a big announcement will be about software — specifically, he neatly illustrated why Aperture may be coming to iOS and the iPad 3. Below, you can follow the rest of the MacStories team as we reflect on what we think has to happen, what could happen, and what we generally would like to see in a Retina-enabled tablet future. Lots of coffee may or may not have been involved in the editing process of said predictions — pardon the excitement, but we think the next iPad is going to be a fantastic upgrade.

After the break, you’ll find our predictions. We will check back on these later this week, and make sure to tune in on MacStories’ homepage tomorrow for our complete coverage. (more…)

Matthew Panzarino at The Next Web has a good overview of a possible issue with the rumored iPad 3′s Retina Display and universal apps: download sizes and 3G. He explains:

Apple’s iPad 3 is set to launch next week and all signs point to it having a Retina display running at 2048×1536 pixels. This should provide a clearer, sharper image to most users and will display many applications in a fantastic new light, as long as developers have prepared them properly.

But the necessity to include these images may present a problem with the mandatory 20MB file size limit that Apple has imposed on 3G downloads.

The problem being: if the iPad really goes Retina, then developers of apps using custom graphics will have to use new images, which will likely be heavy and bump the download size of an app. For universal apps, already carrying Retina and non-Retina images (the latter both for iPhone and iPad), this can become a serious issue if we assume that most users who will see the “Over 20 MB” alert will be scared away or simply forget to buy an app. And developers (and Apple) want to make the process of buying apps as frictionless and immediate as possible.

I see two solutions. Either Apple gets the carriers to agree to larger download sizes, establishing a new “average” that should work for most apps (let’s say 60 MB as Panzarino suggests), or they rebuild the download mechanism completely by allowing devices to “ignore” resources they don’t need. The second solution would be a “cleaner” approach, in that it would address the root of this likely scenario — that is, devices downloading apps containing all kinds of images and resources for Retina and non-Retina displays.

By “localizing” images in a way languages are localized on the OS, Apple could find a way to know if an image is destined to an iPad or not. And if so, if it’s also destined to a Retina iPad, or old-generation iPad. Furthermore, in theory, this would also allow Apple to differentiate between images used by an iPhone and iPad which, right now, are always downloaded within the same, single .app package. Paul Haddad, who tweeted about the issue today, confirms my suspicion that this method would require a fundamental change to apps — I can only assume it would require different naming conventions or new APIs to let devices be “smarter” in understanding the resources they need to look for when downloading a new app. But the issue is real — always assuming the iPad 3 will feature a Retina Display, which seems like a pretty good bet at this point — and I think this is something Apple has surely considered.

The other way, of course, is to get carriers on board with larger downloads while on 3G — but the issue of universal apps bumping downloads (and thus 3G usage) would still remain for the users, and Apple would still need to somehow address the core of the issue, which is the existence of Retina and non-Retina devices downloading universal apps containing multiple custom graphics at the same time. I agree with Matthew, this issue will be an interesting one to watch.

According to The Loop, Apple has just sent out invitations for a media event in San Francisco on Wednesday, March 7th. The event will be held at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, starting at 10 AM PDT (1 PM EST).

Earlier this month, it was reported Apple would hold an event in the first week of March to formally introduce the next-generation iPad, so far unofficially dubbed iPad 3, to a selected press audience in San Francisco. The new iPad, reportedly set to launch later this month, has been rumored to carry a high-resolution Retina Display; MacRumors even posted photos of what they claimed to be a production unit of the display, showing an increased number of pixels when put under a microscope. The device has also been widely rumored to share the same design aesthetics of the iPad 2, with tapered edges and a flat aluminum back. Back in January, Bloomberg reported the iPad 3 would come with a faster processor, presumably quad-core, and LTE connectivity, which was also confirmed in a separate article by The Wall Street Journal. Similarly, Rene Ritchie at iMore claimed Apple would hold an event on March 7th to announce an A6-powered, LTE-enabled iPad 3.

We have collected a series of iPad 3 rumors and theories here.

We’ll cover Apple’s media event on March 7th on MacStories’ homepage.