Let's call it the iPad New!

What's happening? Brian Tong here. And welcome to the Apple Bite. This week, it's all about Apple's announcements for the iPad New. That's what I'm calling it so let's get to it and to the stories. Now this was Tim Cook's first major launch event and we made sure to give him the warm Apple Bite welcome. Yeah. We get out of hand sometimes but forget whatever rumors you heard. The new iPad is being called the new iPad and it delivers on a lot of what we expected. A Retina display that's crystal clear with twice the resolution of previous iPads at 2048 by 1536 with 1080p video support and it's really the most impact full new feature. Now the new A5X processor is still dual-core but it brings quad-core graphics power. You can be sure games and apps will look pretty sexy on this. Then we have the rear camera. It's been boosted to 5 megapixels with 1080p video capture at 30 frames per second. It's a welcome improvement but unfortunately, this is really going to kick start the I take pictures with my iPad in pubic phenomena. I've already seen it at concerts and basketball games. You do not wanna be that person. Yeah, don't be that guy. Now, Apple is also bringing a 4G LTE option for faster data connectivity. Voice dictation is really nice but the lack of full series support is a let down. It really should have been on the level with the iPhone but I forgot, it's (BETA?) just advertised as an official feature. And the best part with all this improvements, you're still getting around 10 hours battery life for those long lonely night. Lonely, I'm mister lonely. Now, the new iPad goes on sale March 16th. Pricing starts at $499 for the 16 gig WiFi and $629 for the WiFi 4G model. And in a trend that Apple started with the iPhone, they'll still be offering the previous gen 16 gig iPad 2 starting at $399 for lower entry price point. Ever wonder which 4G iPad you should consider? Verizon says they'll be supporting the hot spot feature on launch and your monthy data plan will include hot spot use instead of charging you an extra $20 bucks from what like they've done with smartphones. Can you believe the carriers actually playing nice? Well not so nice. AT&T is working with Apple to get the feature enabled but it won't be ready for launch time. So here's the breakdown for data pricing on both carriers with their data plans with the future of AT&T's hot spot feature to be determined. Now, mine is on pre-order but if you are hoping to get an iPad New on it's release date, you might have to wait in an actual Apple Store lined with smelly people after online orders for certain models are slipping past the date or you could try RadioShack. That's right. The Shack is the only other company at the moment taking pre-orders if you buy a $50 gift card from them first. Nice guys. All right, the Apple TV also saw an update, no not. That Apple TV but the little $99 black box. It now supports 1080p video playback from iTunes, Netflix, Youtube and more. You'll also be able to stream previous iTunes purchases like your movies, TV shows and music except from those Universal and FOX right now due to content agreements that Apple is working out. One the software side, the iLife collection on the iPad is complete with iPhoto for $4.99 getting its own dedicated app with a full on suite of editing tools that we've never seen from Apple. A cool new feature for making picture journal is that like a scrap portal with widgets you can add and having new ways of sharing your pictures like beaming them or sending them to Facebook. Now, Garage Bin and iMovie were also updated with improvements of their own for $4.99 a piece. Now, with the release of the new iPad, Apple has also increased their over the air download limit for the app store to 50 megs from the previous 20 meg limit. But the best software update, hands down has to be iOS 5.1. It's available now and it addresses the number one request, the ability to delete photos from the Photo Stream. The camera shortcut is now always visible on the log screen with improved face detection. Audio is optimized on the iPad to sound louder and clearer for videos but if you're on AT&T and you did the update for your iPhone 4S, when you're connected to their HSP (a plus now worth?), you'll now see a 4G icon even though it's technically not 4G, just faster 3G that they call 4G. But you know what? I don't care. This is the most amazing update ever and I might as well just go out, upgrade to a 4S so I can have Apple's first 4G phone. All right. We'll be here next week. Just a day before the iPad New comes out but send us all your questions to the applebite@cnet.com for our e-mail episode. That's gonna do for this week's show. I'm Brian Tong and we'll catch you next time for another bite of the Apple.