My husband and I got our ipad 3's yesterday as well. We're both new to ipads/apple products but graduated from 10" mini laptops (which I sold on ebay). I picked up a few smart covers on ebay and wanted to let people know that the generic ipad 2 smart covers do not have the magnets in the correct place to turn the ipad 3 on and off. I got my husband this:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Red-Ultra-Sl...item3cc235d272
which works well to turn the ipad 3 on and off when you open/close the cover, however I got this for myself:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/iPad-2-Smart...item3f142fe299
and it doesn't turn the device on and off. The magnets that connect the cover to the device work fine, but it doesn't turn on and off when you open/close the cover. My daughter has an ipad 2 so she adopted my new purple cover and it works fine on the ipad 2.