is what apple i pad 3 will look like

With the official iPad 3 announcement expected to drop on March 7, it won't be long before the streets outside Apple Stores will once again be packed  with eager fanboys.

Our guess is as good as the next guy's as to what Apple's next-gen iPad will actually look like, but in order to keep the competition at bay and maintain its title as the most covetable rectangle on the planet, we think the iPad 3 needs the following…

iPad 3 – Higher-res screen
It's looking more than likely that Apple is going to boost the screen resolution of the iPad 3 to a pupil-pleasing 9.7in version of the iPhone 4S Retina Display.

The rumoured 2048 x 1536 resolution suggests the iPad 3 will not match the 326ppi density of the iPhone 4 and 4S. Rather, the resolution would be a pixel density of around 260 pixels-per-inch. But hey, we'd gladly take four times the screen res of the iPad 2 any day. With rival tablets gaining more screen-smarts, now is the time for Apple to up its game in the screen department.

iPad 3 – Quad-core engine
With the quad-core tablet battle heating up thanks to the Asus Transformer series and Huawei's recently announced MediaPad 10 (which boast twice the power of the iPad 2's A5 processor) it's high time Apple entered quad-core territory.

Rumours of an A6 quad-core-toting iPad 3 and beefier graphics have been doing the rounds for some time now, and it seems silly of Apple not to boost the iPad 3's engine for a more powerful iPad experience. There has also been talk of the iPad 3 packing in an overhauled A5X processor, though – hopefully we'll see a quad-core slate unveiled on March 7th.