Apple has sent out invitations to a media event set to take place on Wednesday, March 7, 2012 at 10:00 am at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, California. An image accompanying the invite shows an iPad with the phrase "We have something you really have to see. And touch."
It is widely believed that Apple will unveil the next-generation iPad at the event as well as an upgraded Apple TV set-top box. More recent rumors have suggested that Apple could additionally unveil a new audio format with "adaptive streaming" that would adjust itself on-the-fly based on how much bandwidth is available when listening to tunes from iCloud.
A new report from 9to5Mac has revealed part numbers for some of the iPad 3 models that we can expect to see next week. If accurate, there will be three different variants of the new iPad. J1 presumably corresponds to a Wi-Fi only model while J2 units will feature cellular capabilities, rumored to be 4G LTE. It is believed that the new Apple TV is codenamed J33.
In addition to the aforementioned 4G LTE capability, most believe that Apple's next iPad will ship with a quad-core A6 processor and a 'Retina Display' featuring a resolution of 2,048 x 1,536. Other far-reaching rumors hint that we could see different size iPads to compete at various price points but I'd be surprised to see that happen anytime soon.