Apple's pioneering tablet, which flogged a dead industry back to life, the iPad, finally put on a business suit, in wake of competition from the likes of two completely diverse players, Surface Pro, and Wacom. At 12.9-inch screen size, it won't be displacing its smaller siblings.

The iPad Pro offers a 12.9-inch Retina display, the device itself looks like a scaled-up iPad Air, and is 6.9 mm thick (compared to the 6.1 mm of the iPad Air 2). It tips the scales at 712 g. The part that lends this device its "Pro" credentials is its sheer screen area (made up of 5.9 million pixels), a user-interface that's better suited to multi-window multitasking, letting you view and and move objects between multiple windows (apps) to get work done, and a full-size on-screen keyboard.

Apple knows that an on-screen keyboard will never cut it, if it's a multi-page text document you're working on, and so it's come up with its very own keyboard-cover, which folds out much like the Microsoft Surface keyboard folio. They keys in the cover take advantage of the new low-travel key design Apple innovated with the new MacBook, and so you won't have that rubbery tactile feedback you expect from keyboard-covers.

The Surface isn't the only device in Apple's crosshair with this device, the company is also eyeing the vast high-resolution graphics tablet market, dominated by players such as Wacom, by taking advantage of the tablet's high-resolution touchscreen sensors, force-touch; with the introduction of a new device called the Apple Pencil.

The Apple Pencil is a high resolution stylus that lets you not just scribble stuff onto the tablet, but offers its third dimension (pressure-touch), letting you vary the intensity with which you draw lines (think brushstrokes, etc.) Unlike competing stylii, the Apple Pencil allows a natural 47-degree inclination.

Microsoft wants a piece of the action, and compete proactively in this ecosystem, and so it announced an entire variant of Office 2016 tailored for the iPad Pro.

Adobe is another software major that invested heavily on the iPad Pro, by offering various Creativity Suite tools redesigned to take advantage of the iPad Pro user interface, and most importantly, the Apple Pencil.

Under the hood, the iPad Pro runs Apple's new A9X SoC, which offers 1.8X more performance over its predecessor, essential for a device of these credentials to tick. Its biggest feature, though, remains exceptional battery life. Apple claims continuous usage of up to 10 hours on a full charge.

The iPad Pro will ship at three price points, US $799 for the base variant with 32 GB storage, and just Wi-Fi (802.11 ac); $949 for the middle-variant with 128 GB storage, and still just the Wi-Fi connectivity; and a top-spec variant at $1,079, offering 4G Cellular connectivity, in addition to Wi-Fi, and 128 GB storage. The Smart Keyboard cover is priced at $169, and the Pencil goes for $99. Available from November, 2015.