Canadians can begin smudging the incredibly sharp screen of Apple's latest version of the iPad next Friday.
Apple CEO Tim Cook announced Wednesday the tablet device would be released in the U.S. and Canada March 16.
Easily the biggest upgrade in the new iPad from the iPad 2 is the new screen using Apple's retina display technology.
The new iPad - Apple never designated an official name - will display four times the number of pixels than the iPad 2.
"Everything you do is just going to look amazing," Cook said at the product unveiling in San Francisco.
Added Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing, in a statement: "The new iPad now has the highest resolution display ever seen on a mobile device with 3.1 million pixels, delivering razor sharp text and unbelievable detail in photos and videos."
Apple said the tablet's display will produce sharper images than a high-definition television and will show more saturated colours.
The new device will also have a graphics processor with four cores and an upgraded camera.
Canadian pricing for the new iPad starts at $519. The U.S. price for the device starts at $499.
It will be available in either black or white.
Battery life will remain at about 10 hours, Apple says.
The new iPad will also be able to access high-speed LTE mobile networks and Apple said Bell, Rogers and Telus will all offer the faster wireless service.
The new iPad is slightly heavier – going from 1.33 pounds to 1.4 pounds – than its predecessor. It will also be slightly thicker to support a more powerful battery.
Anand Srinivasan, a technology analyst for Bloomberg, said the new iPad is on top of the tablet industry from a technological standpoint.
"(The new iPad) compares very favourably to the likes of Samsung, Acer and Asus," he told CTV's National Affairs.
Cook boasted at the launch event that Apple is leading the so-called "post-PC" era of computing, saying it sold 172 million iPods, iPhones and iPads last year.
"Apple is at the forefront of this revolution. Apple has its feet fully planted in the post-PC future," Cook said.
Apple said there are now 585,000 applications available in its online app store. More than 200,000 are made specifically for the iPad.
The market responded to Apple's announcement with a shrug as Apple's stock closed Wednesday at $530.69, up a mere 0.08 per cent.
