Report: iPad 3 to be announced in March

Apple is set to announce iPad 3 next month in San Francisco, AllThingsD's John Paczkowski is reporting this afternoon.

The company will unveil the third-generation tablet on the first week of March, which is timed in the same week as GDC between March 5-9.

The device itself is said to be a similar form factor as a second-gen iPad, according to Paczkowski, but will feature an improved GPU (Graphics Processing Unit), faster chip and a retina display of 2048×1536.

Apple chose to unveil iPad 2 in a similar event in San Francisco last year, deciding to place it across the road from the Moscone Center on the same day Nintendo president Satoru Iwata gave a keynote at GDC.

Apple itself has refused to comment.

The event would be the first major unveil by the company under new CEO Tim Cook since the death of co-founder Steve Jobs, who presented last year's iPad 2 presentation, in October.