What to expect in Apple's iPad 3

BANGALORE, INDIA: The new iPad 3, which is set to be unveiled on Wednesday, is expected to offer a better screen, camera, processor and 4G wireless capabilities. All this may come for the same price as its predecessor iPad 2, according to media reports.

Experts believe the new iPad 3 would reflect a natural progression of iPad 2 which was released exactly a year ago, but has been besieged with complaints of backlight "bleeds" and yellow tint on the display.

Here is a peek at the features of the new iPad3.

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Better screen:



Apple seems to be certainly working on bringing a higher resolution screen on the new iPad. It has already brought a "near-perfect" Retina Display on iPhone 4 and 4S. So the new iPad may have a resolution of 2,048 by 1,536 pixels, twice as much as the iPad 2.

Capacitive bezel

Rumour mills are abuzz with reports that Apple is serious about removing physical buttons on the new iPad. The invitation sent out to media houses showed the soft buttons replacing the hard ones. The argument is supported by the fact that there has been a couple of patents for hot bezels in the recent past.

But there are many who dismiss this rumour saying that invite picture could be just in landscape mode.

Mountain Lion features/ Siri:





Seems pretty likely that the cloud, syncing, and some 4S features will make it to the new iPad, likely in the form of iOS 5.1. This will probably be announced but shipped later, since Mountain Lion and 5.1 for other devices are both still in development.

Apple is also expected to bring the unique Voice Assistant application Siri whcih was introduced for the iPhone 4S.

Quad-core CPU:



The need for more power to handle improved graphics and higher resolution has long been felt by Apple fans. Apple competitors have even gone ahead of Apple in this aspect.

iPhone 4S-style camera



Apple is already reported to be buying new camera stacks in bulk. The old iPad camera has been described as awful by critics. Hence, there are good chances that Apple will go for a camera upgrade on the new iPad. Rumours suggest the new iPad's camera may not be exactly the same as iPhone 4S but shares at least some of the improvements like back side illumination and better lens.

Thicker case



A change in size is out of question. However, reports say it could be a centimeter thick, which was probably the magic number Apple wants to stay under.

Anything over that is considered uncivilized. It’s not going to be the thinnest tablet in the world (the market is too diverse now to claim that title for long anyway) so Apple may focus on theirs being under a centimeter with better battery life and a better screen than anyone else, at least for now.