The audience held its breath as Apple CEO Tim Cook announced, "Next up is iPad," early into the Apple event at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco, California on Wednesday.

The iPad Pro is the company's latest and largest tablet. The iPad Pro is enormous at 12.9 inches and 1.54 pounds, which is not bad for a tablet of its size. The first iPad weight 1.5 pounds. It has 10 hours of battery life. At 6.9mm thick, it is a bit stouter than the 6.1mm iPad Air.

Cook referred to it as "the biggest news for the iPad since the iPad."

The iPad Pro sports an aluminum casing with curved edges. The 2,732 x 2,048 display allows split-screen multitasking should you want to run two apps side by side. It's also great for the picture-in-picture video playback feature available in iOS 9.

Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice president for marketing, referred to the iPad Pro as "a magic piece of glass," that delivers laser sharp text. He said that watching movies on it is "incredible."

"This is the most advanced display we have ever built," Schiller said, adding that it is "better for productivity." He gave the example of video editing.

The iPad Pro also has a front and rear camera. There are four speakers -- two speakers at the top and two at the bottom. It also features side buttons, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, a Lightning port and a headphone jack. You can buy a cellular model with LTE, an option not available on the MacBook.

The device is equipped with an A9X chip, Apple's 3rd generation 64-bit chip that offers 2GB of memory and flash storage. The company claims it's faster than 80 percent of the portable PCs on the market.

Apple also announced two accessories for the iPad Pro: the Smart Keyboard and Apple Pencil.

The keyboard has keys covered by a special Apple-woven fabric. The keyboard connects to the iPad Pro through a new magnetic Smart Connector that transmits power and data simultaneously.

Schiller described the iPad Pro's performance as "desktop class," which could imply that Apple is touting the iPad to replace the PC.

Eric Snowden, Adobe's director of design for mobile apps, demonstrated three design Adobe applications on the iPad Pro during Wednesday's event, showcasing the device for content creation, not just for watching streaming movies and TV shows.

Microsoft Office VP Kirk Koenigsbauer also took the stage on Wednesday to show how to use Microsoft Office on the iPad Pro.

The prices for each model are $700 for 32GB, $949 for 64GB, and $1,079 for 128GB. The latter also comes with Wi-Fi and cellular.

The Smart Keyboard will cost $169.

The Apple Pencil will have a retail price of $99.

The iPad Pro release date will be in November.