Apple's iPad versions of its iLife and iWork apps will be up to five times as large as their predecessors due to the ultra-high resolution of the new iPad. Vietnamese site Tinhte has spent some time with the new iPad and made an interesting observation on app sizes:

"The applications developed by Apple have been upgraded to support the Retina Display. For example Keynote was previously only 115MB but its latest version is 327MB. Numbers is up from 109MB to 283MB, Pages moves from 95MB to 269MB, and iMovie from 70MB to 404MB." (Translated from Vietnamese)

While some of the apps have received additional features, it seems likely that the increase in size is mainly down to the huge graphics needed to fill the new iPad's 2048 x 1536 Retina Display. It's worth remembering that these are only download sizes, and once installed the apps may be even larger. Regular apps will likely receive a similar bump in size once developers update them with hi-def graphics. Along with iPhoto for iOS's ability to handle nineteen-megapixel images and the iPad's new five-megapixel camera, it seems like space will be at more of a premium than before, and the 16GB iPad in particular is looking short on local storage.

As Apple doesn't fragment its releases, instead relying on unified apps, the bump in size will also hit owners of the iPad and iPad 2, as they'll have to store the unused Retina graphics. Evidence of this increase can be found in the latest Tweetbot update, which increases the app's size from 9.8MB to 25MB. Tinhte has also released a number of sample images taken with the new iPad's rear-facing camera, and they look up to scratch with those produced by the iPhone 4 — that's to say, much better than any tablet camera we've ever seen. We'll find out for ourselves in less than 48 hours (March 16th, 8AM, to be precise).