Apple Unveils New iPad, iOS 5.1, and Brags a Little

In case you don’t know, Apple do very well for themselves. They like to tell us all the time. At the Apple event in San Francisco, they reminded us of their dominance. The iPod, iPhone, and iPad contributed to 76% of Apple’s revenue – Apple starting as a computer company and all. 172 million of these 3 devices were sold in 2011, and 315 million in total. 362 Apple retail stores have helped to contribute to these numbers (via Slash Gear). How about the iPad itself? Last quarter alone, 15.4m iPads were sold. How does this compare to other “personal computer unit” sales? HP sold 15.1m, Lenovo 13m, Dell 11.9m – who needs a personal computer??

But who cares about numbers when I can tell you about the new iPad. Without blabbing or describing everything, here are the main details:

– Improved retina display (so your eyes can see the screen?)
– A5X chip with quad-core graphics capacity
– 5 MP camera
– 1080p video recording
– Voice dictation feature – Supports US English, British, French, German, Japanese and Australian dictation. Canadians – just be careful when you say “about”, “hoser”, and “eh”
– Look out networks – the new iPad will work with new high-speed 4G LTE networks from AT&T and Verizon (in the USA). It will also work two other new mobile networks, which will be important outside the U.S: HSPA+ and dual-channel HSDP

If you want it, pre-orders start today in the US, UK, France, Germany, Switzerland, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, and Canada. The cost? The 4G versions are $629, $729, and $829 for 16GB/32GB/64GB, available on March 16. For just the Wi-Fi version, it will be $499, $599, and $699 for 16GB/32GB/64GB.

Also, Siri will see some language updates (i.e.: people in Japan can use it) on the iPhone 4S, as part of the new iOS 5.1, which will be available today. Apple also announced a new Apple TV, but we don’t care about that, do we?

Apple also announced updates to iPhoto, including increased editing power, multi-touch edits (for things like shadows), and sharing photos with friends on iCloud.