So, plenty of iPad 3 rumours are knocking about stating that the tablet will be sporting a super-high resolution Retina display, comparable to that found in the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S. The proposed resolution by many gadget bloggers and anaylsts would be somewhere in the region of 2048x1536.

But what would that actually look like compared to the Apple gear we already have? The iPhone 4S and iPhone 4 sit only at the 960x640 mark, while the first two iPads are 1024x768. The iPhone 1, 3G and 3GS models are a paltry 480x320.

In otherwords, a 2048x1536 resolution display (squeezed into a ten-inch screen, remember) would look IMMENSE. It dwarfs even the resolution of a Full HD Blu-ray viewing, the current consumer high-water mark.

To illustrate the point, Chris Koerner put together a handy comparison chart. If you weren't excited about the potential of the iPad 3 before, you probably should be now.

Click the image above to see a full-size comparison.

Apple may be gearing up for a big launch event in the first week of March for the iPad 3, if a new report by AllThingsD is to be believed.

According to the site's sources, they're stating that at the very least an event will be hold detailing the product, even if its actual release sits a little longer away.

No time or place was revealed by the source, but the blog hazards a guess at "presumably [...] the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts" as the venue with the tablet itself released following "the same schedule as that of the iPad 2: available for purchase a week or so after the event".

By that estimation, it'd make it pretty much a year-on-year refresh for the line since March 2010, when the first iPad was released following its unveiling in January.

As for what to expect from the iPad 3, the rumour mill has certainly been churning of late. Reports of a 2048x1536 Retina display, a quad-core A6 chip, larger battery and a more comprehensive camera offering than the iPad 2's pitiful showing have all been suggested.

Via: AllThingsD

Ready for some more iPad 3 rumour-goodness? Of course you are! BGR are the latest gang claiming to have been made privy to details concerning the latest Apple tablet's innards, and if they've got their facts straight it makes for some very exciting news.

Getting their info from a source that claims to have actually gotten its mitts onto a prototype iPad 3, the source claims that the next-gen slate will have LTE connectivity and a quad-core processor.

Posting screenshots from a debug tool called iBoot, the source also reveals two model numbers J1 and J2, or iPad3,1 and iPad3,2 as they've been listed elsewhere. These likely correspond to the Wi-Fi only version of the tablet and the GSM/CDMA/LTE variant too.

Some processor model number juggling also seemingly confirms the quad-core update; Apple's A4 chip is called the S5L8930X and the A5 is the S5L8940X. The protype is said to sport a S5L8945X, which is now thought to be the model number of the quad-core A6 processor.

Calling it "the fastest iOS device ever", Apple better hope the rest of the world see the iPad 3 as positively; Samsung are apparently preparing to launch some very tasty tablets of their own at this month's MWC 2012 show.

Fancy a bit of Xbox Live gaming on your Android or Apple iOS device? That's the possiblity being speculated upon today after a loose-lipped Microsoft executive teased the expansion of the platform.

Speaking to Forbes, an Xbox spokesperson stated that:

"While the Xbox Live experiences and games always work best on the Windows platform, we understand that some Xbox fans may be using other types of devices. To satisfy that need, we are working to extend a few of our Xbox experiences and titles to other platforms."

When it comes to mobile, only devices packing Microsoft's own Windows Phone OS have access to playable Xbox Live games. While the iOS App Store offers the Xbox Live status, stats and message tracking app My Xbox Live, as well as the standalone Kinectimals app, it doesn't yet offer gaming that's integrated into the same experience you'd find on Microsoft's home console. The same goes for Android devices.

While expansion to other platforms would be great news for consumers, Microsoft will have to weigh any eventual decision up very carefully. On the one hand, moving onto iOS and Android would greatly expand the Redmond company's mobile gaming dominance. But on the other, it will detract from the Xbox Live integration that is a key differentiator on their struggling Windows Phone 7 platform.

Will there ever come a time when Apple do not post record sales figures? The Cupertino company have just revealed their results from the fiscal 2012 first quarter (the 14 weeks leading up to December 31st), revealing stupendous sales of iPhones, iPads and iMacs.

Sales from these areas amounted to a record quarterly revenue of $46.33 billion, with a net profit of $13.06 billion. Compare this with the same period last year (with revenue of $26.74 billion and a net quarterly profit of $6 billion) and the takings have more than doubled. That net profit is more than all of Google's revenue across the same period.

It's all mostly thanks to the iPhone 4S, which, thanks to a late release which saw it pushed into October 2011 from its expected June window, helped push the record quarter. Including older models, Apple are thought to have sold some 37.04 million iPhones in the quarter, a 128% increase over the same quarter a year ago.

iPad and Mac sales were up to shifting 15.43 million and 5.2 million units respectively. That's an 111% growth in iPad sales over the same quarter and a 26% growth in Mac sales too.

The only product now in sharp decline is the iPod, which despite selling a giant 15.4 million units, saw a 21% year-on-year slide.

"We're thrilled with our outstanding results and record-breaking sales of iPhones, iPads and Macs," said CEO Tim Cook.

"Apple's momentum is incredibly strong, and we have some amazing new products in the pipeline."

We don't need no education.

Er... sorry Mr Floyd. I think we do actually . And it seems the recent launch of iBooks 2 is already proving it. Just 3 days after Apple's education-orientated eBook store update, Global Equities Research believe that 350,000 textbooks have already been downloaded through the platform.

The update seems to be inspiring content creation too, with AllThingsD reporting that the eBook authoring Mac app iBooks Author has already been downloaded a whopping 90,000 times too.

It's a strong start for Apple's push into digital education, and also acts to highlight just how popular and widespread iPad tablet take-up has been.

Pearson, McGraw-Hill and Houghton-Mifflin Harcourt are among the educational publishers using iBooks 2 to deliver media-rich textbooks to iPad owners. The three publishers represent 90% of the US textbook market for high school students.

Click here for more on iBooks 2.

Apple have launched iBooks 2, a new version of their eBook reading app for iOS devices that adds extra features specifically for textbooks and education purposes, described by Apple's senior vice president of worldwide marketing Philip Schiller as "a new textbook experience for iPad."

"We try to bring the same energy and passion we've put into every product we make into our education business as well," he said at the product's unveiling at the Guggenheim Museum in New York today.

"There's something really profound starting to happen, it's remarkable. We're seeing that, as students are introduced to iPad, remarkable things are happening."

Among iBooks 2's new features is the ability to browse real-time glossary definitions, embed 3D animated models into books, and enhanced interactive gallery features, all of which would be welcome in specialist medical fields, for instance.

iBooks 2 also allows users to take in-app notes with the "My Notes" feature, as well as linking directly to the iBooks store to keep Apple's coffers full of your money.

Those looking to create their own iBooks tomes also get new software. iBooks Author for OSX also launches today, letting anyone create textbooks and eBooks.

iBooks 2 will hit the App Store now and is free. The books themselves, obviously, are not. Likewise, iBooks Author is now available on the Mac App Store, and is also free.

Now that all the fanfare surrounding the annual CES show is beginning to die down, it's time for the iPad-refresh rumours to crash through the floodgates once more. The latest loose-lipped source "in-the-know" has been talking to Bloomberg, who believe they've got their hands on a few rough specifications for the new tablet.

Top of the list of new features is a quad-core processor, a reasonably safe-bet for inclusion with the rise of quad-core Android tablets, and the core-doubling jump that the iPad 2 made over its preprocessor. The extra processing grunt will allow videos to "begin playing almost instantly", according to Bloomberg's source.

That's particularly impressive considering these videos are expected to be full-HD, running on an iPad 3 screen that is said to offer a higher pixel density than some HDTVs. Again, it's a decent claim; we'd expected the iPhone's Retina display to hit the iPad 2, and would likely rile many Apple fans were it not to feature this time around.

Lastly, Bloomberg's source claims the iPad will be LTE-ready for super-fast mobile download speeds. It's apparently hitting the iPad ahead of the iPhone due to the tablet's more substantial battery. Again, it's a decent rumour-shout, but with LTE still not widely available in the UK and much of Europe, it puts this feature into question. Apple don't like to fragment their device ecosystem, and offering a feature in one territory and not another seems a very un-Apple-like thing to do.

All pretty rudimentary then as far as rumours go. We'll expect to hear plenty more like this in the coming weeks and months, right up to a Spring launch, should the current Apple release schedule be anything to go by.

Those looking for a glimpse at the future of Apple's products should take a look at this recently uncovered patent from the Cupertino team.

Describing a 3D UI, it would see Apple's touchscreen devices rendering 3D environments, using a "sensor based display environment" and readings from the gyroscope to detect hand-movements in front of the screen.

Basically, it means that you wouldn't necessarily have to touch the screen to interact with the smartphone. Instead, you'd be able to manipulate 3D shapes that would appear to hover outside of the phone.

While it's incredibly unlikely to make it into any iPad 3 or iPhone 5 device, it's a tantalising glimpse at what Apple are considering for iOS updates in the future. Let's hope the hardware needed to make these designs a reality land sooner rather than later!

Via: Patently Apple

I worry about dropping my iPad from about waist height, so I'd have had a heart attack watching the makers of the G-Form Extreme iPad 2 Sleeve drop their Apple tablet from OUTER SPACE.

It's all been done to prove that their G-Form Extreme iPad 2 Sleeve is really as rugged as it sounds. Strapping an iPad 2, nestled snugly in the case, to a weather balloon with a camera also attached, it rises to above 100,000 feet before plummeting towards the Nevada desert, hitting the ground.

AND SURVIVING THE FALL.

Is it the real deal? Is it fake? It's hard to tell. The case is made of a composite blend of PORON XRD and utilises Reactive Protection Technology to keep the iPad safe, which sounds so full of BS that it might actually be true that it can protect the tablet from such a fall.

Either way, the iPad was lucky not to land with the screen facing down onto all those jagged rocks, as that would certainly have smashed it.

If the video has done enough to impress you, you can pre-order one of the G-Form Extreme iPad 2 sleeves from Firebox now, priced £69.99.

Griffin are doing a great job of catering for budding musicians on the iPad at CES 2012, adding two new music-making tools that beef up the potential for sonic creativity on the Apple slate.

First up is the StudioConnect, which, when combined with the GarageBand app, turns your iPad into a feature-rich portable music studio.

An all-in-one interface, it handles audio and MIDI-IN, as well as MIDI-Out connectivity. Instruments and mics can be hooked up through a mono 0.25-inch connection, as well as plugging a mixer into the stereo 3.5mm jack.

Left and right line-level RCA plugs are onboard, as well as a 3.5mm stereo headphone jack for monitoring your creations.

Griffin have also launched a slightly more basic music tool called MIDIConnect. It adds a standard 5-pin DIN MIDI-in port to your iPad, letting you plug in guitars, keyboards and the like, as well as a MIDI Out port that can be used to turn your iPad into a MIDI controller, at a fraction of the cost of a dedicated one.

"GarageBand has put powerful audio production tools within reach of any musician with an idea and an iPad," said Mark Rowan, president of Griffin Technology.

"We've made it easy to connect your real instruments with GarageBand and control every aspect of your project."

StudioConnect will be available from February for $149.99, with MIDIConnect landing sometime in the spring for $79.99. No word on UK pricing yet or availability, but Griffin usually do a good job of getting their gear over here at roughly the same time.

For more news from CES 2012, click here.

An explosion at Shanghai's Riteng Computer Accessory Company factory has left 61 workers injured, 23 of whom have been hospitalised with burns.

The accident occurred on Saturday afternoon, with the factory in the middle of a trial production run of aluminium back panels for Apple's iPad 2 tablet.

"Our hearts go out to the people who were hurt in Songjiang. We are working closely with Pegatron to understand the cause of this accident," said spokeswoman Carolyn Wu.

The incident is the latest in a long string that underlines the poor working conditions that many Chinese factory workers endure in order for us to enjoy our techy items. Another explosion back in the Spring at Apple's Foxconn factory resulted in the death of a worker, and was attributed to poor extraction systems for a combustible aluminium dust, an easily prevented disaster.

Via: Reuters

iPads are about to join the mile-high club in the captain's cabin of American Airlines planes, as the FAA has now approved the use of iPads by pilots in the cockpit.

As of Friday 16th December, pilots will be able to replace their bulky flight manuals with one of Apple' sleek touchscreen tablets, letting them more easily browse the reams of information stored within the paper tomes.

Rigorous testing by both American Airlines and Alaskan Airlines was carried out to ensure both the hardware and accompanying software we're reliable enough to work consistently across long-haul flights.

"Pilots will use iPads as electronic chart and digital flight manual readers," the source told ZDNet.

"The airline will begin iPad operations on B-777 aircraft, and then implement across all other fleets. By using electronic charts and manuals, the safety and efficiency on the flight deck is significantly enhanced."

However, the move is sure to miff frequent flyers who are regularly told to refrain from using electronic devices during take off and landing, as well as needing to switch off wireless equipment. Won't the pilots' tablets interfere with equipment too?

Perhaps airlines will relax rules on in-flight electronics following this new allowance.

Is that an iPad 2 I see at the top of your Christmas list? Hold fire, eager tech fan! New rumours suggest that the next-gen Apple tablet is merely a few months away, meaning that your new favourite toy may be out of date before too long.

The latest whispers come from supply trackers DigiTimes, who've a decent track record for spotting Apple's gear on the production lines.

They reckon that Apple's parts manufacturers have began sending new components to the assembly plants at Foxconn, where the Cupertino team's gear is made.

iPad 2 production will begin to slow down over the next few weeks, with iPad 3 devices ready in time for the new year. This lines up nicely with a proposed March or April release come the Spring, which is in keeping with Apple's yearly product refresh cycle.

According to DigiTimes, Apple will have a whopping 10 million iPad 3 units ready to hit shelves by Q1 of 2012.

Via: DigiTimes

To mark the first anniversary of The Beatles back-catalogue being made available digitally for the first time through the iTunes store, Apple have teamed up with the Fab-Four's team to offer iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch users an exclusive free "Yellow Submarine" book, based on the 1968 Beatles movie of the same name.

A digital update of the 2004 "Yellow Submarine" book, it's packed with psychedelic interactive illustrations, video clips from the movie and song snippets, with a full "read aloud" voice over narration track from Dean Lennox Kelly.

Click here to grab the free book, or download it through Apple's iBooks application.

Since making their debut on the iTunes store, The Beatles have racked up ten million songs sales and over 1.8 million album downloads on the iTunes Store worldwide. Bet they wish they'd jumped onboard a bit sooner now!

The next gen iPhone and iPad devices from Apple will each be packing 4G super-fast mobile data connections.

That's the report coming from Nikkei Business, who state that Apple's smartphones and tablets will be making the jump to LTE speeds for the first time.

Nikkei Business believe that Apple CEO Tim Cool has already entered into talks with Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo, with the two meeting in Apple's hometown of Cupertino.

It is thought that the two firms have come to an agreement to bring iPad 3 and iPhone 5 devices, each packing the aforementioned 4G connections, to Japan by next autumn. If that's the case, it's likely that a US 4G carrier such as AT&T, T-Mobile or Sprint will also offer the super-fast handsets, though with the UK's 4G infrastructure significantly lagging behind other international territories, it's unlikely Blighty will be able to folow suit.

Despite stellar sales in most every other territory, the iPhone 4S hasn't been quite as successful in South Korea and other Asian nations where 4G is beginning to hit its stride. While the likes of Motorola, Samsung and HTC all have 4G offerings already, it's important for Apple to also make the LTE jump are they to continue to remain competitive in these areas.

Via: Mac Rumours

There was once a time when little Jane and Jimmy Christmas wanted nothing more than a rocking horse, an Action Man and a giant Toblerone sitting wrapped beneath their Christmas trees. Now, for better or worse, they want videogames like Gears of War, Modern Warfare and The Legend of Zelda instead. Oh, and that giant Toberlone too.

So to save tears come Christmas morning, what games consoles are they going to need to play all this year's best titles on? And which ones go that extra mile to offer multimedia fun for all the family too? PS3 or Xbox 360? PlayStation Vita or Nintendo 3DS? Read on to find out!

When you're done here, be sure to check out the rest of Tech Digest's 2011 Christmas wishlists too.

Apple's developer beta build of iOS 5.1 has landed and with it, after some serious code trawling by Apple's hardcore fanboys, news of plenty of potential new devices headed our way next year.

All of Apple's major hardware areas apart from mp3 players seem to have big releases lined up, with reference made to Apple TV units, iPhones and iPads.

Looking at iPhones first, hidden in the code is reference to an iPhone 5,1 device. That number 5 doesn't nessecarily signify a whole new hardware jump to an iPhone 5 (the iPhone 4 for instance was spotted in code as 3,1, 3,2 and 3,3 before release), but the iPhone 4S was listed as 4,1 so there's nothing ot say an iPhone 5 isn't on the cards.

Next up iPads, with three different devices made reference to in the code. Firstly, the iPad 2,4 is expected to be a re-vamped iPad 2 headed to the US Sprint network, where it's likely to get WiMAX capabilities, or possibly even a TD-LTE version for Chinese markets.

There's also reference made to iPad 3,1 and iPad 3,2. This is most likely the iPad 3 device, in both its Wi-Fi only and Wi-Fi and 3G variants. It seems to be going under the codename J2.

Lastly, Apple TV. It's identified as Apple TV 3,1 with the codename J33, again suggesting a significant upgrade. Is the long-fabled Apple LCD TV with iOS built in finally ready to be revealed?

The next iteration of the OS is also rumoured to have a major overhaul for the Siri voice recognition software lined up too.

Currently in the hands of developers, expect to see the new iOS software in touching down for all users in the coming weeks.

Via: 9to5Mac

Apple have caught the Black Friday bug, which can only ever be a good thing for tech fans wanting to get their hands on some premium Cupertino gear on the cheap.

Top of the deal list is a 16GB WiFi iPad 2 for just £368, down from £399, followed by an iMac for £918. At brand new, never-removed-from-packaging prices, that's pretty darn good.

However, move down the Apple price chain and the value of the deals aren't quite as good. iPod prices in particular (the gadget most likely destined for stockings up and down the country) don't quite meet third party discounts from the likes of Amazon.

For instance, a 4th gen iPod Touch from the Apple store will cost you £154 today. Amazon, on a regular day, charge £143.95 for the same bit of kit. Likewise the Nano, selling for £104 through Apple, is undercut by Amazon at £102.81.

Splitting hairs perhaps, but it still shows that, even with the allure of Black Firday deals looming over shoppers, it's still worth having a good look around first before you commit your cash. Those iPad and iMac deals are a relative steal though.

Tech gifts don't have to be about screen sizes or processing capabilities these days. In fact, they don't have to be physical gifts at all. You can put a smile on a loved one's face just by setting them up with one of the many ace online digital services and subscription packages that are tied into apps, download and streaming sites too.

From music packages like Spotify to productivity programs like Dropbox, there's something here for everyone.

When you're done here, be sure to check out the rest of Tech Digest's 2011 Christmas wishlists too.