The next iPad may be even thinner than the current iPad Air.
The iPad Air is already pretty thin, but the second-generation model may be even slimmer. Specifically, it's rumored to be 0.5mm thinner than the model Apple sells today.
We'll probably see Touch ID in the home button.
It seems likely that Apple will put the Touch ID fingerprint sensor it introduced on the iPhone 5s in its new line of iPads. Various leaks from the past few months have made this claim, including a recent report from French blog Nowhereelse.fr. This is the same blog that leaked a ton of photos of the iPhone 6 before it was released, which turned out to be accurate.
And it'll likely be available in gold, too.
Apple is likely to add a gold color option to its like of iPads just like it has done with the iPhone. Bloomberg reported this earlier in October, saying it spoke with three people familiar with Apple's plans. KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who is probably the most accurate Apple analyst out there, also predicts the same.
The screen may be a little sharper.
A developer that's been working with a beta version of the next iOS update says he's found new screen resolutions supported by iPad, hinting that the screen may be a little sharper. KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo also believes the next iPad will squeeze between 30-40% more pixels per inch than the current iPad Air.
Expect to see some small design changes.
The next iPad is expected to look almost identical to the iPad Air, but with a few subtle design changes. Leaked specifications published by blog The Michael Report suggest it may feature one row of speaker grills rather than two, and the volume buttons may be recessed into the body.
It may also come with a better camera.
The current iPad Air comes with a 5-megapixel camera, but Apple may bump that up to 8-megapixels with its next release, as Korean news source ET News reported in July. We've since seen other reports that align with this claim.
The front camera may get an improvement too.
The current iPad Air comes with a 1.2-megapixel front camera, but the new model may feature a 2-megapixel camera — which could result in slightly clearer FaceTime chats.
The new iPad will be powered by an extremely fast processor.
Apple typically upgrades the processor inside its new iPads, so there's a good chance we'll see the same happen this year. We'll probably see a variation of Apple's latest A8 processor (found in the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus) appear in the next iPad, as The Michael Report also reported last week. The new iPad is also expected to come with slightly more memory (2GB of RAM vs. the iPad Air's 1GB of RAM).
Apple may cut the 16GB option.
Apple might get rid of the 16GB storage option with its next iPad and only offer 32GB, 64GB, and 128GB variants, according to The Michael Report.