The next round of iDevices

So here's the short version of Apple's announcement from its new CEO Tim Cook, today...

Apple have defined the Post-PC world, and is defining the Post-PC future too with the iPod, iPhone and iPad.  They're now selling their wares through 362 retail stores worldwide and in Q4 of 2011 these stores had in excess of 110million visitors.  

They've sold 315 million iOS devices, with 62 million of them being in Q4 2011. Siri now works in French, German and Japanese as part of iOS 5.1

The App Store now holds 585,000 apps and the 25 billionth download was in China. iCloud has 100million users and now supports Movies in the cloud. 

Apple TV

iCloud now supports 1080p Movies. The new Apple TV supports that. There's a new UI, with photo streaming and recommendations based on your viewing habits. It's priced at $99 and is available next week. 

iPad

15.4 million were sold in Q4 2011 (HP sold 15.1 million PCs in the same period). It's less than 2 years old and everyone loves it. It has over 200,000 apps designed specifically for it. So what can beat an iPad2? The New iPad!

A Retina display (2048 x 1536 pixels) over a million more than a 1080p display. 264 pixels per inch. 44% better colour saturation. 

The A5X processor. Quad-core graphics. Fastest iPad yet. 

iSight Camera.  The 5 megapixel camera just like on the iPhone 4S. 

1080p video recording. Includes video stabilisation and noise reduction. 

Voice dictation. A Mic key on the keyboard enables English, French, German and Japanese support. 

4G LTE. Faster network connection where available - and I have to stress that "where available". For my money this is the weakest feature because the network providers either don't provide these speeds or charge over the odds for using them. LTE isn't generally available I the UK. It will run as a personal hotspot though - much like the iPhone 4. 

Battery Life. 10 hours on 4G. 9.4mm thick and weighs 1.4lbs

$499 for 16Gb, $599 for 32Gb and $699 for 64Gb (WiFi)

$629 for 16Gb, $729 for 32Gb and $829 for 64Gb (WiFi & 4G)

Pre orders now, available in both black and white from March 16th. 

There's also a raft of software updates for "The New iPad" including...

iWork - free upgrades if you've already bought them or $9.99 each otherwise. 

GarageBand also has updates including iCloud integration. Available today. 

iMovie. New story boarding and editing facilities. Free upgrade or $4.99. Available today. 

iPhoto. New to the iPad. If you've used iPhoto before then you'll know what this is about, if not you're in for a treat. New effects, multitouch editing, beaming photos across devices, brushes, journals. The "reinvention" of the iPhoto application.  Supports up to 19megapixel pictures. All the editing features, cropping, straightening, enhancing, white balance and red eye are still here, plus area exposure and saturation controls for specific portions of a picture. Journals is like an automatic scrap book builder for your photo collections. It's $4.99 and available today. 

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This post originally appeared here: Posterous