APPLE finally unveiled the gadget the world has been waiting for tonight - the new iPad.

In a series of announcements that will send shudders through the industry, Apple chief executive Tim Cook also revealed a new Apple TV box with a smart new user interface and access to the iTunes music library.

Apple sold 62m iOS devices (iPhones and iPads) in the last quarter- which accounted for 76 per cent of its revenues.

The new iPad (not officially known as the iPad 3) is set to drive demand for Apple devices to record levels.

Announcing the new tablet, Cook said: "It is amazing. We've taken it to a whole new level and we are redefining the category that Apple originated with the original iPad. Rethinks features while retaining everything that people love about it."

The most noticeable feature of the new device is the high defintion screen - the highest of any tablet.

In fact, at 2048x1536 pixels the iPad has an amazing one million pixels more than even the biggest HD television and four times the number of pixels than the iPad 2.

As widely predicted to power this beast Apple has selected has quad-core graphics processor which is four times faster than the best Android tablet graphics processing unit (GPU).

The new iPad also features an iSight camera that's good enough for everyday photos with a five megapixel resolution and a five element lens. This enables the tablet to add high def video recording to its repertoire.

Other tricks include voice dictation which translates speech into different languages, next generation long-term evolution (LTE) wireless (which won't be available in the UK until next year at the earliest) Marketing wiz Phil Schiller demonstrated the iPad's LTE abilities by streaming video faster than it was possible to watch in real time and downloading four photos in the time it took to download just two on an iPad 2.

Incredibly, despite the increased processing power and the amazing screen, Schiller claimed the new iPad has the same ten hour battery life as its predecessor (nine hours on 4G wireless).

Apple plans to reposition the iPad 2 as a low cost tablet device to take on the Amazon Kindle Fire and other cheaper tablets running on the Google Android operating system.

However, the iPad 2 will cost $399 in America, which could mean the price cut in the UK is less than many would-be iPad owners hoped as Apple products rarely reflect the full dollar-pound exchange rate different.

Apple's claim that the iPad 2 would be cheaper than every other tablet apart from the Kindle Fire would be wide of the mark in this country where Android tablets start at less than £80.

As for a new iPad no official UK prices have been announced but, with an ultra high res screen and next generation wireless, it's a certainty they won't be cheap.