AppShopper

The fantastic 8-megapixel camera in the iPhone 4S –plus the fact that I have my iPhone with me almost everywhere I go– makes it my go-to camera to capture images of both the mundane and strange things I come across. However, I’m not the world’s best photographer and my pictures usually need a little help to make them pop or even just look presentable at times and I rely heavily on photo editing apps. MacPhun’s FX Photo Studio is one app that I’ve been trying out recently and they’ve just announced a promotion that I wanted to share with you.

MacPhun, in partnership with Sincerely, Inc., will be offering free postcards through the FX Photo Studio iPhone app on a first-come, first-served basis starting at 12:00 a.m. Pacific time tomorrow, March 27. This promotion is good for the first 50,000 postcards so you should get it on this action early in the day in order to get your card for free before this limit is reached.

Within FX Photo Studio, all you need to do is capture (or import) the image you want to send as a postcard, edit it using the nearly 200 effects available within the app, and then tap on the postcards button in the share menu to prepare and submit your masterpiece for mailing.

This ability to send your photos as postcards is a new feature that just debuted a few days ago with the release of version 4.7 of the app. If you want more details about how this works, check out MacPhun’s FAQ here.

If you happen to miss this special, sending a postcard costs between $1 and $3 depending on your location, which is very reasonable pricing to easily send postcards using your own photos while on vacation to your friends and family. FX Photo Studio itself costs $1.99 and has a ton of features. If you’re looking for one-stop photo editing and enough sharing options to choke a horse, you can’t go wrong with FX Photo Studio.

• $.99Buy Now
  Photography
  

  FX Photo Studio

  Last Changed:

  5 hours ago

  Rating:

  4.50 (157)

  Version:

  4.7

  iOS iPhone

  On sale 1 day only. FX Photo Studio celebrates its birthday. The best collection of photo effects and filters on the App Store. ★★★★★ CNET: "FX Photo Studio has become one of...

Though we don’t usually cover games here at AppShopper, I’d feel remiss if I didn’t let you know about the release of a new Angry Birds game. I mean, your day would be incomplete without this information, right? Plus, what better way is there to while away time in the first week of spring than killing evil green pigs in space by flinging annoyed avians at them?

So, yeah. Angry Birds Space is now available in the iOS App Store and the Mac App Store. There are two versions in the iOS App Store – one for the iPhone, which costs $.99, and one for the iPad, which costs $2.99. For the Mac, Angry Birds Space costs $4.99. I purchased the iPad version and it looks spectacular on the new iPad’s retina display. The physics of the game is different than previous earth-bound versions to more accurately reflect the gravity of smaller heavenly bodies in space.

You can see a video showing the story of how the birds and pigs got into space to begin with. In case you were wondering how creatures without opposable thumbs managed this feat. And I know you were. (Hint: it involves a wormhole.)

The peeps over at our sister site TouchArcade will have a review of Angry Birds Space up later today if you want more details before spending your hard-earned cash. But I wouldn’t hesitate to make that purchase in your shoes if you liked any of the previous versions of Angry Birds. Angry Birds Space is a meaty game with 60 levels and the physics of outer space will challenge any bird-flinging skills you’ve developed to date.

• $.99Buy Now
  Games
  

  Angry Birds Space

  Last Changed:

  3 weeks ago

  Rating:

  4.50 (10623)

  Version:

  1.1.0

  iOS iPhone

  #1 in 116 countries! Big thanks to all our fans! “Intergalactic phenomenon worth every penny” – AppCraver “Takes the fundamental physics-based flinging of the original and turns it on its...

• $299Buy Now
  Games
  

  Angry Birds Space HD

  Last Changed:

  3 weeks ago

  Rating:

  4.00 (2725)

  Version:

  1.1.0

  iOS iPad

  #1 in 116 countries! Big thanks to all our fans! “Intergalactic phenomenon worth every penny” – AppCraver “Takes the fundamental physics-based flinging of the original and turns it on its...

• $499Buy Now
  Games
  

  Angry Birds Space

  Last Changed:

  5 days ago

  Rating:

  3.50 (13)

  Version:

  1.1.1

  Mac OS

  #1 in 116 countries! Big thanks to all our fans! “Intergalactic phenomenon worth every penny” – AppCraver “Takes the fundamental physics-based flinging of the original and turns it on its...

Although the iOS App Store offers several Google Voice apps for your free texting and call routing pleasure, offerings to access this handy service through a native application on your Mac are a bit more sparse. In the past, I’ve used Andreas Amann’s excellent Dashboard widget, GV Connect (Amann also created the GV Connect iPhone app for Google Voice), but I’ve found an even easier way to access my Google Voice account right from my Mac’s desktop thanks to developer Eric Horacek’s recently-updated GrowlVoice.

Before I get any further, note first that you need a Google Voice account first to use GrowlVoice – accounts are free and can be requested here (Google Voice is currently only available in the U.S. only). If you’re not familiar with Google Voice, Google provides a number of overview videos on a special Features page. In short, Google Voice is a free service that provides users with a phone number, advanced call management features, voicemail transcription, and free text messaging. Contrary to what those unfamiliar with the service might think, it is not a VoIP service (Google offers VoIP services through Google Talk, which is a different, but related, service).

GrowlVoice 2.0 hit the Mac App Store earlier this month and offers access to nearly every Google Voice feature in an eye-pleasing package. GrowlVoice lives in your Mac’s menu bar and can be invoked by a mouse click. You can also define custom keyboard shortcuts to bring up the new call and text message dialogs as well as to open your inbox or the first message in your inbox.

The main view shows your inbox as a consolidated list of all text messages and voicemails, displaying the first line of each message or voicemail transcript, if available, and its date. Here, you can also star items and mark them as read or unread by clicking the icons on the left. These tasks, along with archiving, marking as spam and more can also be done through the contextual menu shown when you right-click on an item. Double-clicking on an item will bring you to a new view showing the entire voicemail transcript or text message conversation.

An anchor button in the top right corner lets you “pin” this view so it’s always visible on top of all other windows if you need to keep an eye on your inbox for a specific message. The number of new text messages or voicemails will always be visible in GrowlVoice’s menu bar icon.

The activity I do the most with Google Voice while on my Mac is sending text messages and I set the custom keyboard shortcut for this to be Command + Control + T (you can make up your own shortcut for this and other functions). The text message composition window includes a character counter to help you keep your message under the 160-character limit. Sending the composed message is as easy as pressing the return key.

GrowlVoice’s settings let you choose to use the contacts from your Mac’s Address Book or your Google Contacts, a choice I appreciate since all of my contacts are in my Mac’s Address Book and I store nothing in my Google Contacts. Also here are notifications settings, the ability to choose between dark and light themes (both are lovely though I prefer the dark theme), and the pane where you can define your own keyboard shortcuts.
 

GrowlVoice supports multiple Google Voice accounts so you don’t have to log in and out of different accounts just to stay on top of them. Performance-wise, I found GrowlVoice to stay in sync well with my Google Voice account, as accessed through Google’s official Google Voice app on my iPhone.

Although it’s currently the only one of the only Google Voice apps available in the Mac App Store, GrowlVoice works very well, looks nice and is worthy of recommendation if you’re looking for a way to access your Google Voice account easily without keeping a browser window open all the time.

• $499Buy Now
  Productivity
  

  GrowlVoice - Google Voice Client

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  1 week ago

  Rating:

  4.00 (538)

  Version:

  2.0.3

  Mac OS

  GrowlVoice is an intuitive and fully-featured Google Voice client that brings the power of Google Voice to your Mac's menu bar. • Send texts and initiate calls in seconds flat • Quickly read and...

The third-generation iPad’s retina display is definitely a beauty and I’m finding that I don’t want to sully it with apps that lack high-resolution graphics. As we noted last week, app developers are working hard to update their universal and iPad-specific apps with better graphics but how can you find which ones have been updated? Well, we’ve made a few behind-the-scenes changes here at AppShopper to help you out. Here is a search you should bookmark:

→ All iPad apps and games updated with retina display support

If your focus is on games, this search will narrow down your results even more:

→ iPad games updated with retina display support

Note that both universal and iPad-only apps will show in the results of these searches.

After you click on those search links, check out the RSS Feed link in the top right corner – you can use this link to subscribe to a feed of each search so you can stay on top of them through your favorite RSS reader (Reeder for the Mac and iPad is one of my favorites).

Apple just announced that more than three million 3rd-generation iPads were sold since its launch on Friday, March 16. Clearly there is strong demand for Apple’s latest tablet, which must be music to the ears of developers with iPad apps. If you’re new to the iPad or updating from an older model, stay with us here at AppShopper for the latest on new and updated apps and definitely install our very own (and free!) AppShopper app on your new iPad. Our app will give you easy access to the newest and most popular apps, the Top 200 apps in every category, plus your very own Wish List where you can track apps you want to get in the future. Our app can even alert you via push notifications when apps on your Wish List go on sale. How cool is that?

• FreeBuy Now
  Utilities
  

  AppShopper

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  12 weeks ago

  Rating:

  4.50 (159)

  Version:

  1.4.3

  iOS Universal

  The official AppShopper.com app from the creators of TouchArcade.com AppShopper keeps you up to date on the newest App Store apps, sales and freebies. Organize apps in your own customized Wish List...

The 3rd-generation iPad is available in stores in the US and nine other countries today and many developers have clearly hustled to make their apps ready for its retina display with a ton of app updates boasting high-resolution graphics arriving this week.

If you will be getting a 3rd-generation iPad today or already have one in your hot little hands, here are some of those iPad apps that have been recently updated with high-resolution graphics so you can bask in the full glory of its more than 3.1 million pixels.

• $299Buy Now
  Social Networking
  

  Tweetbot — A Twitter Client...

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  2 weeks ago

  Rating:

  4.50 (69)

  Version:

  2.3

  iOS iPad

  Tweetbot is a full-featured iPad Twitter client with a lot of personality. Whether it’s the meticulously-crafted interface, sounds & animation, or features like multiple timelines &...

• FreeBuy Now
  News
  

  NYTimes for iPad

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  6 weeks ago

  Rating:

  3.00 (334)

  Version:

  2.2.1

  iOS iPad

  Enjoy the award-winning journalism of The New York Times, anywhere, with the enhanced NYTimes app for iPad - including more content with blogs, videos and slide shows. The app is free to download...

• $499Buy Now
  Education
  

  Star Walk for iPad - interactive...

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  2 days ago

  Rating:

  4.50 (89)

  Version:

  5.7.2

  iOS iPad

  *** Parents' Choice 2012 Gold Award *** *** Webby Awards 2012 Nominee in Education and Reference category *** *** Optimized for the new iPad *** *** Winner of Apple Design Award 2010, featured by...

• FreeBuy Now
  Books
  

  Kindle – Read Books, Magazines...

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  8 weeks ago

  Rating:

  4.00 (4597)

  Version:

  3.0.1

  iOS Universal

  The Kindle app is optimized for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch, giving users the ability to read Kindle books, newspapers, magazines, textbooks and PDFs on a beautiful, easy-to-use interface....

• FreeBuy Now
  News
  

  Readability™

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  9 weeks ago

  Rating:

  4.00 (247)

  Version:

  1.0.3

  iOS Universal

  ** Readability - the web's best reading platform - finally arrives for your iPhone or iPad ** Readability turns any web page into a clean view for reading now or later on your computer, iPhone or...

Apple has also created a new section in the App Store that lists apps ready for the new iPad here (link opens iTunes).

If you’re looking for games, our sister site TouchArcade points out that Sky Gamblers: Air Supremacy, an new air combat game that was featured during the event when the 3rd-generation iPad was announced earlier this month, is now available. Another game also featured at that event, Infinity Blade: Dungeons is expected soon as well. TouchArcade has also compiled a list of games that have have been updated to take advantage of the 3rd-generation iPad’s retina display here.

Using the release of the new iPad as reason for a sale, Gameloft has dropped the price of several of its titles to just $.99. These games are normally $6.99 or $4.99 so now is the time to snag them if they’ve been on your Wish List. Here’s a partial listing of what they’ve marked down:

• $699Buy Now
  Games
  

  Modern Combat 3: Fallen Nation

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  8 weeks ago

  Rating:

  4.50 (4721)

  Version:

  1.2.0

  iOS Universal

  When war hits home, abandon all fear. **IGN: “Modern Combat 3 is the best FPS on mobile devices, especially if you're a multiplayer-minded gamer.” The best, most realistic smartphone FPS series...

• $699Buy Now
  Games
  

  Silent Ops

  Last Changed:

  8 weeks ago

  Rating:

  4.00 (1796)

  Version:

  1.0.0

  iOS Universal

  Join a secret organization that is present everywhere, protecting us from the invisible threats of the 21st Century that other agencies aren’t equipped to handle. They employ only the best agents...

• $699Buy Now
  Games
  

  BackStab

  Last Changed:

  8 weeks ago

  Rating:

  4.50 (4076)

  Version:

  1.0.0

  iOS Universal

  ** Kotaku: “…nice to have a game of this depth and variety in my pocket.” “My name is Henry Blake, once a proud officer in England’s Royal Navy. Now I stand a shattered man. Betrayed,...

• $699Buy Now
  Games
  

  Spider-Man: Total Mayhem HD

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  8 weeks ago

  Rating:

  4.00 (1330)

  Version:

  1.0.0

  iOS iPad

  *** “Spider-Man: Total Mayhem is fantastic fun, offering the speed and variety of a top notch action game with the vibrant colour and characters of a great comic book” – PocketGamer 9/10 GOLD...

• $699Buy Now
  Games
  

  Assassin's Creed-Altaïr's...

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  8 weeks ago

  Rating:

  3.50 (261)

  Version:

  1.0.0

  iOS iPad

  The benchmark of action/adventure games on next-gen consoles lands for the first time on iPad, with entirely refined graphics. Jerusalem, 1191 A.D. The Third Crusade is tearing the Holy Land apart....

• $499Buy Now
  Games
  

  Splinter Cell Conviction™ HD

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  8 weeks ago

  Rating:

  4.00 (602)

  Version:

  1.0.0

  iOS iPad

  The benchmark of action stealth games on console is available for the first time on iPad. **SlideToPlay: “Splinter Cell Conviction is undeniably a high quality game.” **TouchArcade: “From the...

If you’re on the fence about whether or not to get the new iPad, you can check out the initial reviews of Apple’s latest tablet that came out a couple of days ago from publications that received review units from Apple. The Verge’s Joshua Topolsky dubbed the new iPad’s retina display “surreal” and found LTE speeds to be impressive. Jim Dalrymple of LoopInsight was also impressed with the new iPad’s display and praised the overall experience of the iPad with iCloud and iTunes Match for ease of use. Macworld also noted the big leap in quality in the display from the iPad 2 to the new iPad and found the improved rear-facing camera to be one of the best available in the tablet market.

There is no shortage of Twitter apps in the Mac App Store though if you browse Twitter on multiple platforms, apps that synchronize your timeline position across your Mac and iOS devices are few and far between. Twitterrific was the first Mac app we saw that included this kind of synchronization using the Tweet Marker service and there’s a lovely new entry in the Mac App Store that now includes the same feature, Said Marouf’s Osfoora.

Osfoora is no stranger to the world of Apple with iOS versions available for the iPhone and iPad since 2010. Osfoora, which roughly means “little bird” in Arabic, debuted in the Mac App Store last month with all of the features you’d expect from a Twitter client these days, including Growl support, Instapaper and Read It Later support, multiple account capability, inline image thumbnails, lists, and more. All of this comes in a clean, subdued interface that doesn’t add to the distraction Twitter can already present all on its own.

Osfoora’s settings let you customize font size, set timeline refresh timing, and define your preferred image and video uploading and URL shortening services. You can choose to use Growl notifications to be alerted of mentions and direct messages and an optional dock icon badge can let you know how many unread tweets are waiting for your hungry eyes at a glance.

Those who like keyboard shortcuts for speedy navigation will find that Osfoora covers all the basics, with easy shortcuts to access your main timeline view, mentions, direct messages, favorites, lists, saved searches and even your own profile.

If you’re a Twitter user who likes a lot of customization options to change interface colors, set up multiple tabs in the same window to hold your favorite searches and other items, you’ll be better served by an application like YoruFukurou, an app that also offers more flexible window resizing, making it my favorite when I’m using my 11-inch MacBook Air and its relatively tiny screen. While Osfoora does let you open multiple windows to view different accounts, you won’t be able to tweak its interface much beyond the font size.

Tweet Marker is a service for “setting and getting the ‘last read’ tweet for a given Twitter user” according to the service’s site and though I think it’s a fantastic idea, few apps are taking advantage of it at this point. The best aspect of Tweet Marker is that it’s device and platform independent in how it works, which means I can use Osfoora on my Mac and Tweetbot on my iPad and iPhone and they will both find my last timeline position thanks to Tweet Marker. I’d argue that this is a service that Twitter itself should offer but for now, I’m happy that there are excellent clients available for all of my devices that make use of this service.

Osfoora for the Mac costs $4.99 and is well worth the price. If you want to get a little crazy and have matching Twitter apps on all of your Apple devices, you can also try Osfoora for the iPhone and Osfoora HD for the iPad, though neither of these apps incorporate the Tweet Marker service at this time, though if I were a betting woman, I’d say this is coming soon.

• $499Buy Now
  Social Networking
  

  Osfoora for Twitter

  Last Changed:

  9 weeks ago

  Rating:

  4.00 (31)

  Version:

  1.1

  Mac OS

  Osfoora is a powerful Twitter client with a clean and intuitive user interface. You'll enjoy a wide set of powerful features such as Muting users, Read Later, Message Conversations, Multiple...

The tip calculator category is a crowded one in the App Store and it can be difficult to stand out but a new app created by three college students brings a refreshing take to the genre. Brown University students Nicholas Shulman and Stephen Poletto came up with the idea for a straightforward and easy-to-use bill splitting app and partnered with designer Ivy Hu to create Billr.

When you open Billr, you first designate the number of people in your party (up to 16 people). From there, each person can enter the amounts of each item ordered.

Once all items are entered, the next screen shows the bill total and allows you to select the correct tax and desired tip amounts. The final screen shows you the amount each person owes to cover the total bill with taxes and the tip given the amount spent by each.

Billr is definitely easy to use and is a keeper for me, though I wish it had one additional feature. When I go out to eat with friends, we rarely bother with splitting the bill based on exactly what each person ordered but instead prefer to evenly split the bill among us all. If Billr included a feature that would offer the ability to evenly split a bill with taxes and tip, it would be my go-to app for all of my restaurant bill calculation needs.

When Billr first hit the App Store in late February, its primary function was to let multiple diners calculate their exact share of a restaurant meal. Since then, Billr has been updated so that it can act as a tip calculator for just one person, making it a fantastic selection even if you’re only looking for a simple tip calculator with an occasional need to split bills among multiple people. Billr is currently available for the special introductory price of $.99 and it’s a great choice to make restaurant bill calculation as painless as possible between friends.

• $.99Buy Now
  Utilities
  

  Billr: Bill Splitting at the...

  Last Changed:

  2 days ago

  Rating:

  4.50 (67)

  Version:

  1.0.2

  iOS iPhone

  Featured in "New & Noteworthy" and "What's Hot" on the App Store. The quickest way to split a bill and calculate the tip at restaurants and bars. Easy to...

At today’s press event where the third-generation iPad was announced, Apple also introduced a new iPhoto app for the iPhone and iPad and updates to the existing GarageBand and iMovie apps.

iPhoto offers multi-touch photo editing, high-quality effects, brushes and more and can support photos up to 19-megapixels in resolution. Photos can be uploaded to Flickr and Facebook directly through the app or streamed to a television via AirPlay and an Apple TV.

Notably, iPhoto does not use Google Maps data for displaying the location information of geotagged pictures, as noted by 512pixels, which seems to be a manifestation of Apple’s acquisitions of mapping companies Placebase in 2009 and C3 Technologies in 2011.

iPhoto is available in the App Store now for $4.99.

• $499Buy Now
  Photography
  

  iPhoto

  Last Changed:

  2 weeks ago

  Rating:

  3.00 (236)

  Version:

  1.0.1

  iOS Universal

  iPhoto is a universal app that runs on iPad 2 or later and iPhone 4 or later. With iPhoto for iOS, Apple brings Multi-Touch to photography in a breakthrough way. Browse, edit, and share your photos...

GarageBand gets a new Jam Session feature to play or record with up to three others using compatible iOS devices, cross-device synchronization via iCloud and more. The full list of what’s new in version 1.2 is as follows:

• Start a Jam Session to play or record live with up to three of your friends using iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch*
• Conduct an entire string orchestra using Smart Strings
• Use the Note Editor to adjust or fine-tune any Touch Instrument recording
• Combine recordings to free up additional tracks using Track Merge
• Keep your GarageBand songs up to date across all your iOS devices with iCloud*
• Share your songs directly to Facebook, YouTube, and SoundCloud
• Perform retro and modern synth bass lines and grooves with new Smart Bass instruments
• Play synth melodies and arpeggios with new Smart Keyboard instruments

• $499Buy Now
  Music
  

  GarageBand

  Last Changed:

  2 weeks ago

  Rating:

  4.00 (333)

  Version:

  1.2.1

  iOS Universal

  GarageBand turns your iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch into a collection of Touch Instruments and a full-featured recording studio — so you can make music anywhere you go. Use Multi-Touch gestures to...

iMovie now features the movie trailer creation feature that debuted in the Mac version in late 2010, plus a new audio browser to preview music and sound effects. The full list of what’s new in version 1.3 of iMovie is as follows:

• Create beautiful movie trailers with stunning graphics and world-class soundtracks*
• Swipe up on the playhead to freeze a frame in your video
• Preview music and sound effects in the Audio Browser
• Create a song in GarageBand and send it directly to iMovie

• $499Buy Now
  Photography
  

  iMovie

  Last Changed:

  2 weeks ago

  Rating:

  3.50 (317)

  Version:

  1.3.1

  iOS Universal

  Make beautiful HD movies anywhere with iMovie, the fast and fun moviemaking app that puts everything you need to tell your story at your fingertips. Browse and play projects in the Marquee view....

In addition to announcing the third-generation iPad, Apple also announced the availability of iOS 5.1 at its press event today and it’s now available for download.

iOS 5.1 includes a few new features, including a redesigned camera app for the iPad and the ability to delete individual photos from Photo Stream, a long-awaited feature for many. Also, the camera shortcut no longer requires a double-tap of the home button to appear on the lock screen – it is now a permanent feature of the lock screen.

Also, Siri gets Japanese language support in iOS 5.1 and an updated network indicator for AT&T is also present, which is already showing “4G” for iPhone 4S users in the carrier’s HSPA+ areas. The plans for this network indicator update came to light in October and is somewhat controversial since the use of 4G to describe the bulk of AT&T’s current network is not quite accurate since does not technically fulfill the official 4G standard.

Image courtesy of MacRumors.com

iTunes 10.6 is also now available, bringing the ability to play 1080p HD movies and TV shows downloaded from the iTunes Store. iTunes Match sees improvements as well, with better song matching, artwork handling and more.

As expected, Apple announced the third generation of its popular tablet device featuring a high-resolution retina display and 4G LTE connectivity at its press event today at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco.

The new iPad’s display has a resolution of 2048 by 1,536 pixels, which adds up to more than 3.1 million pixels and offers better color saturation than previous models. Inside, it has Apple’s quad-core A5X processor. The new iPad maintains its 10-hour battery life despite these internal changes that will require more power.

The next-generation iPad also gets an improved rear camera with a 5 megapixel sensor and many of the camera features present in the iPhone 4S, including auto face detection and exposure and focus lock and the ability to record 1080p HD video.

Voice dictation also makes it to the iPad though full-fledged Siri and its capability to complete tasks like creating calendar events and reminders and searching the internet are not present.

Global 4G LTE also makes it into the new iPad. In the US, Apple will offer additional models for Verizon’s 4G CDMA network.

The new iPad will be available on March 16 in the US and 11 other countries with online pre-orders beginning today. Pricing remains the same with the Wi-Fi-only models coming in at $499 for 16GB, $599 for 32GB, and $699 for 64GB and the Wi-Fi + 3G/4G models pegged at $629, $729 and $829 respectively for the same capacities. As with the iPad 2, both black and white models will be available.

Apple will continue to sell the 16GB iPad 2, dropping the price to $399 for the Wi-Fi model (down from $499) and to $529 for the Wi-Fi + 3G model (down from $629).