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Apple announces iPad Pro, iPhone 6S and a new Apple TV

Apple's Tim Cook got on stage in San Francisco today and said, "We are about to make some monster announcements." The company then spent the next two hours talking about improvements to the Apple Watch, new iPhones, a new iPad and a new Apple TV, all of which the technology company claimed are huge leaps forward for their products.

So what are the highlights? Let's break it down:

Apple Watch

Apple claims the Watch has a 97 percent customer satisfaction rate, which seems like a tricky thing to attempt to measure (and of course, they didn't share specifics about how they reached that percentage). Still, they know there's always room for improvement, so they showed a bit of watchOS 2.

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One of the new features for the Watch is Time Travel. Not, like, literal time travel. Your smartwatch is not about to become a TARDIS (but how cool would that be?). Instead, Time Travel is a way to quickly scroll through your day and see not only your schedule, but how other things might affect your day-to-day plans. For example: What the weather will be like tonight when you drive home from work.

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They also talked about new apps (Facebook Messenger is coming to the Watch) and more. You can get a more complete watchOS 2 rundown on Apple's website.

They're also releasing a bunch of new Watch bands, including some created in conjunction with Hermes. Those will be in "select stores" this October. Lastly, the Watch will soon come in gold and rose gold (basically pink) colors. Those new models start shipping today. WatchOS 2 is available Sept. 16.

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The new Apple Watch with a Hermes band is displayed following an Apple event Wednesday,...
The new Apple Watch with a Hermes band is displayed following an Apple event Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2015, in San Francisco. (AP Photo / Eric Risberg)

iPad Pro

Tim Cook called the iPad "the clearest expression of our vision of the future of computing." They're taking it a step further with the iPad Pro.

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The iPad Pro's 12.9 diagonal screen is as wide as the iPad Air 2 is tall. Its 5.6 million pixel display is "more pixels than a 15 inch MacBook Pro with a Retina display."

But it's more than just a bigger iPad. The chip inside it is 1.8 times faster than their last iPad chip -- up to 22 times faster than the original iPad. According to Apple, it's "faster than 80 percent of portable PCs shipped within the last 12 months." This is enough power, apparently, to edit three streams of 4K video in iMovie.

It also has four speakers and supposedly sports 10 hours of battery life. In a kind of weird moment, Microsoft came on stage to show off how great Microsoft Office is on the iPad Pro. Apple even introduced the company by asking, "Who knows productivity better than Microsoft?" We're living in some weird times.

All that power won't be cheap, though. The iPad Pro starts at $799 for a 32GB model. $949 for 128GB. You want LTE in there? That'll cost you $1079.

But with desktop-like power, you need a bit more than just a touch screen to get some real work done. Thus...

Smart Keyboard

You know the fancy covers that the Microsoft Surface tablets have, which double as a keyboard? Yeah, this is basically one of those. It will run you $169.

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Pencil

This accessory earned a few more "ooohs" and "ahhhs" than the keyboard. At first glance, the Pencil is just a stylus. But it's got its own technology in it -- enough that the Pencil actually has an internal battery, which you can charge by plugging it directly into the iPad.

It can detect pressure, position and even tilt. Say you're drawing something and want a wider brushstroke. Just tilt the Pencil so you've got more than just the tip on the screen, and viola.

Of course, because this is Apple we're talking about, this accessory won't be cheap, either. It will cost you $99.

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Apple Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller speaks about the Apple...
Apple Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller speaks about the Apple Pencil and the Smart Keyboard prices.(Stephen Lam / Getty Images)

Apple TV

"We believe the future of television is apps," Apple says, because of course they do.

Siri plays a big part in the new Apple TV. The remote -- which also sports a touch pad at the top -- has a microphone with which you can ask Apple's voice-activated virtual assistant to help you watch TV. Whether it's finding shows to watch ("Siri, show me something funny," which will show you the top comedy shows), information about what you're watching ("Who is in this movie?" which will bring up a cast at the bottom of the screen) or even help with what was said ("What did she just say?" will rewind the video 15 seconds and turn on captions, showing you exactly what dialogue you missed).

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You can even use Siri to search for things that would normally require a pop culture savvy friend. The example they used on stage was, "Show that Modern Family episode with Edward Norton." The Apple TV immediately went to the relevant episode in which Edward Norton was a guest star. If the technology actually works as well as it seemed to on the demo, it could be impressive.

Eddy Cue, senior vice president of Internet Software, discusses the Apple TV.
Eddy Cue, senior vice president of Internet Software, discusses the Apple TV.(AP Photo / Eric Risberg)

Perhaps more relevant to your day-to-day TV watching: The Apple TV will also search for movies and shows across all supported video services. So if you want to watch an episode of New Girl, it will tell you where you can watch it, be it iTunes, Netflix, Hulu, etc.

Apple also took a moment to show off games on the Apple TV, but don't be fooled: While the Apple TV has an App Store and will probably get some fun stuff, this is clearly no competition for the Xbox One, PS4 or Wii U.

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The games that were shown were Crossy Road (a Frogger clone that is already a huge success on iOS), which now includes multiplayer, and a brand new (and exclusive) game from Rock Band developer Harmonix: Beat Sports. The latter looked a bit like Wii Sports (particularly since it's controlled by physically swinging the Apple TV remote) but with a rhythm game twist.

Sports will also play a role on Apple TV, but at least for now it seems to be app driven. In the spotlight was an MLB app that allows you to watch games (even two games at once, side-by-side) and view stats in a slick interface. An NHL app will be coming in 2016.

They also showed off the shopping app Gilt for Apple TV, which felt to me like something only a crazy person would use. "Honey, get off the living room TV. I want to buy a new purse." Who wants to do that?

The new Apple TV will ship in late October. It will be $149 for a 32GB box or $199 for 64GB.

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iPhone 6S

Last on Apple's docket was new iPhone models. The big new feature for this year isn't the new colors (though you can get them in gold or rose gold to match your new Apple Watch colors), it's 3D Touch.

Apple sees 3D Touch as the next step up from the now-familiar multi-touch. Essentially, it's adding pressure sensitivity to the iPhone's touch screen. So in addition to swiping, pinching and so on, you can now touch the screen lightly or more forcefully for different interactions.

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An example they gave was the Mail app. By touching lightly on an e-mail in your inbox, you can "peek" at the contents of the e-mail without fully opening it. If you want to commit to opening the e-mail fully, you can press a little harder, or you could choose to go ahead and reply to, delete or do other things with the e-mail in question without technically having to navigate to a separate screen.

If you're used to using a PC every day, you could almost think of this like a right-click function in some cases.

People look over the new Apple iPhone 6s models during a product display.
People look over the new Apple iPhone 6s models during a product display.(AP Photo / Eric Risberg)

Apple also envisions a world in which all of our pictures move, a la Harry Potter. So they're introducing Live Photos, which seem to be a bit like GIFs and a bit like Vines, but Apple stressed that they're "not videos." Essentially you take a picture like you always would, but your phone records about a second and a half before and after you hit the shutter button. The result is an image that, when you hold your finger on it, animates.

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There are other improvements -- the camera is now 12 megapixels and can shoot 4K video, for example -- but they're mostly minor by comparison.

Pre-orders for the new phones begin on Sept. 12, and they will be out on Sept. 25. They start at the same price the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus released at last year ($199 and up with a two year contract), but Apple is also offering a new way to buy them: The iPhone Upgrade Program. This program is exclusive to Apple retail stores in the US (at least right now), and for a monthly fee (starting at $32 a month) you can get a new, unlocked iPhone every year.