My fear is that this will be just another marginal upgrade. My hope is that Apple will give me a reason to upgrade. My wishlist:
1) USB 3.0. It takes way too long to transfer at USB 2.0 speeds. My Macbook Pro Retina has 2 USB 3.0 ports why are iPads still stuck on USB 2.0 speeds. The larger the storage space the worse the problem becomes. Especially if you do a major replacement of content on the tablet every week. It also limits my ability to use the iPad as a second display
2) H.265 HEVC. My 128gb iPad Air can hold more than enough video content for my longest flights but it's at the expense of the number of audio tracks. HEVC would allow me to be more efficient with the storage I have. And hardware decoding would have little to no impact on battery life
3) 256gb storage option. With HEVC and the additional storage, I would be able to store most of my music files in ALAC and have enough space for video content to last a week of travel.
4) Replacing the lightning connector with USB-C Rev 1 with the support for video out (DisplayPort, HDMI) with adapters.
5) 160kps has been the AAC standard for audio quality on MP4 video since my original iPad 1. Could you please increase this to 256kps and up the total bandwidth?
6) I would rather have better battery life than the device getting any thinner.
7) With the USB 3.1-C Rev 1 speed and connector it would have the bandwidth and response time needed to use the iPad as an extra screen for my MacBook while traveling. It would be great if Apple included this functionality, but I'd be happy to buy an application to get this functionality
I don't believe that anything on my wish list that would be difficult Apple to implement. There is no technology barrier to implement any of this and it would make the entire ecosystem more valuable.