Tech giant Apple will reveal its new and highly anticipated iOS device at a media event on Wednesday, March 7, which will put an end to the unconfirmed rumors on the specs and features of the device that started from almost a year back. Here are some of the new features and innovations that we can expect from iPad 3:

Design

The rumors say that the new iPad will look like the previous generation. However, due to the rumored Retina Display, the new iPad could end up being slightly (0.8mm) thicker than iPad 2. Apple may have tweaked the design slightly to make it feel thinner by giving it a more tapered back casing. The new device is also rumored to be lighter compared to iPad 2.

Retina Display

Apple's new iPad is very likely to sport a gorgeous high-resolution 2048x1586 Retina Display, which would be twice the resolution and four times the pixel density of iPad 2 and the original iPad. This is one of major features of the new device.

Quad-Core A6 Chip

Apple is known not to be too grand with the outward appearance of their devices but improve its insides. Some say it could be powered by a quad-core A6 chip or by an improved dual-core A5X chip.

Graphics

Apple's next generation A6 or A5X system on chip will definitely include a much faster graphics processing unit (GPU). It remains to be seen if Apple will use the next generation GPUs introduced by Imagination Technologies last month, which are supposed to provide 20 times or more performance improvements, while also being 5 times more efficient.

8MP Rear Camera

Rumors suggest that the next iPad will come with 8-megapixel camera similar to the iPhone 4S' and an improved front facing camera for FaceTime HD.

RAM

We were disappointed when we found out that iPad 2 has only 512 MB RAM, after several rumors indicated that it will get double the RAM. While there have been no rumors on this front, we hope that the next generation iPad comes with at least 1GB RAM.

4G LTE

It is widely expected that the third generation iPad will support the faster 4G LTE networks. Qualcomm unveiled its fifth generation Gobi embedded data connectivity reference platform for mobile devices, which supports multiple LTE bands with backwards compatibility to existing 2G/3G technologies, which has increased the chances of Apple introducing a 4G iPad as Apple no longer needs to make any design compromises to add the 4G LTE radios.

Storage Capacities

According to recent rumors, the new iPad will be available in the same storage capacities as iPad 2 - 16GB, 32GB and 64GB. But since the size of the applications will be larger due to Retina Display, there is a chance that Apple will unveil the 128GB storage, which could be a big deal for the device.

Battery life

Though iPad's battery life hasn't been a concern, we hope that despite features such as Retina Display and faster dual-core or quad-core chip, the new iPad offers the same or longer battery life compared to iPad 2.

Improved Sound Quality

The sound quality on iPad is pretty decent. However, there is always scope for improving iPad's built-in speakers.

Bluetooth 4.0

Considering Apple's decision to include less-than-a-year old Bluetooth 4.0 in the newly launched Mac Mini and Macbook Air and iPhone 4S, it is very likely that the next iPad will also get Bluetooth 4.0.

Siri

Apple's new iPad could be the second iOS device to get Siri - Apple's revolutionary personal assistant feature, which is currently exclusively available on iPhone 4S. However, some rumors suggest that the new iPad will only get Siri's Dictation feature. But since Siri needs an internet connection for it to work, it remains to be seen if Apple will be happy with the idea of Siri not being available to users with an iPad Wi-Fi only model all the time. The other way to look at it is, it could convince more people to buy the more expensive iPad 3G + Wi-Fi model.

iOS 5.1

Apple's new iPad is expected to come pre-installed with iOS 5.1. However, no major features have been discovered so far. All we know so far is that it would bring rich text formatting to Notes app and ability to delete photos from Photo Stream and expected to fix some privacy related issues such as the permission based access to the Contact list for apps that raised a major controversy.

There have been some rumors that Apple will add more functionality to Siri in iOS 5.1. Apple is also expected to add support for Chinese, Japanese and Russian to Siri. International users would be hoping that Apple adds Maps and local search support in their countries.

Price

There have been some rumors that iPad 3 may cost higher than iPad with an additional $70 for the 3G+WiFi model and $80 for the Wi-Fi only model. Even though iPad 3 is expected to feature a high resolution 2048x1536 Retina Display, which will cost more than the current iPad 2 LCD display, it seems highly unlikely that Apple will increase the price an iPad 3. A recent report has also confirmed that iPad 3 pricing will be the same as iPad 2.

Availability

Since Apple will be unveiling iPad 3 on Wednesday, March 7th, we expect Apple to start taking pre-orders for their iPad 3 in the U.S from March 9th and launch it on March 16th. This should be followed by the international launch on March 23rd or March 30th. But it is possible that Apple may give developers some time to get their apps ready for iPad 3's Retina Display, which could push the launch dates by couple of weeks.

We just have to wait for the official announcement and unveiling of the device on March 7 to see if all of the above speculations were true.