iPad 3/HD big new feature may be touch-feedback display

As anticipated, Apple introduced its next-generation iPad at a launch event in San Francisco. The 9.7" tablet has a faster A5X processor, 4G LTE, 5MP digicam, and a Retina screen with 2048 x 1536 pixel resolution. Interestingly, the name of the new tablet isn't "iPad 3" but "the new iPad".

Its E-Sense system creates the impression that a touchscreen has real texture, through so-called 'tixels' using electric fields via elements embedded around the edge of the screen. These tixels can make specific areas of the display feel rough or ridged, for example, in response to the image being displayed on screen. As TNW points out, perhaps the most significant element of this technology, at least as far as the new iPad is concerned, is that E-Sense 'requires no modification of the screen's surface, nor does it use moving parts', meaning that it could conceivably be integrated into Apple's new tablet without requiring substantial re-engineering of the display.