All are good improvements, but disappointed by increased weight and thickness.

Agreed Vladimir. since I bought the iPad 2 I've been left slightly disappointed with my purchase due to the lack of support for flash for IOS. This coupled with fact that you have to use iTunes completely turned me off ever buying a new iPad. Moral of the story? Buy the Samsung, and experience what most pc users will agree as normal external device management via windows explorer.

Extra weight? Saves me a gym membership. Let's do it.

How can Apple advertise the iPad as 4G in Australia if it doesn't work on the 4G network. Surely they are in breach of advertising and consumer laws. Is it ethical to advertise something you don't deliver?

No Thanks. Still be like living in a walled garden....not enough of my OWN choices.

Cigarette smoking went up by 50% three minutes after the IPad 3 was released...

Truly a (personal) disappointment to justifying purchasing this half-upgraded tablet. Asus Prime 700T is still looking 'prime to purchase'... as I can live with the lesser pixel count for more independent use and convenience of not being tied to iTunes. No Siri, no quad processor, no decent camera(s)... spells WAIT FOR the New iPad (4)... but money is going on Asus for the purchase. Android tablets were just allow to catch up, their next renditions will have the same or equal display, Apple offers nothing more that the Androids can't match. IMHO Either way, I have to learn Android or Apple... Android it is. TOTALLY DISAPPOINTED IN APPLE. They won't be counting my money in their inflated revenues this year... :(

Why are some people so obsessed about the size and weight?. Most end up putting it in a case which increases the thickness anyway, and it's not like you could fit it in your pocket to begin with! and if you can't handle a few extra grams in your hand then I suggest you go to the gym and man up.

So far there is no mention of it being an "iPad 3". The Apple store only refers to it as "The new iPad". Which makes me wonder if the next iteration of this device will be called something complete different.

as soon as they doubled the resolution (which quadrupled the number of pixels), they gave the graphics subsystem 4 x the workload to do.
So it's a bit of a concern they only doubled the graphics performance of the chip.
Any any extra chip performance is likely to consume more power, hence the need for a bigger battery (screen will pull more juice as well).
hence the thicker and heavier unit. Still weighs not much though.