Apple unveils "The New iPad" with retina display, iOS 5.1 released

While we all slept (unless you stayed up all night), Apple was busy talking about their fancy new tech, showing off the new iPad and releasing the next iOS version.

First off, the next iOS, available today, adds Japanese language support to Siri, a redesigned iPad camera app, better face detection and improvements on battery life. At time of writing, though, the software update servers appear to be slammed, but you have all day to update it later on, right?

Of course, the star of the show was the new iPad. The literally-named device now boasts a 2048×1536 resolution retina display, a 5mpx iSight camera capable of 1080p HD video capture and the A5X chip for four times the performance from the iPad 2. The next iPad also boasts a 10-hour battery life and is 4G LTE capable.

The new iPad is ready for pre-orders for shipping in Singapore on March 16th. Prices range from S$658 (Wi-fi 16GB) to S$1088 (Wi-fi + 4G 64GB). The iPad 2 has dropped in pricing but only in 16GB models.

For more details on the new iPad (I’m still gonna call it the iPad 3), head to Apple’s website. You can also watch last night’s Keynote address here.