Apple is expected to hold a press conference sometime this year where the company will be showing off a cheaper iPad model with a 9.7-inch display. The cheaper iPad is expected to get a hardware bump from the A9 SoC present in the current affordable slate, but a potential upgrade that we could be seeing from the tablet is from the camera side. A new rumor claims that the new affordable iPad will feature a 3D sensing module but this does not necessarily mean the slate will be Face ID-capable.

Apple has previously mentioned that the sales of large-screen iPad models are increasing, despite the fact that the market itself if sluggish. According to new reports from industry insiders in Taiwan, Apple is stepping up its AR game, and working on AR related hardware.

Apple believes that a cheaper iPad is conducive to the popularity of the AR experience. Sources say that Apple is deeply committed to the development and promotion of AR technology and the company is strengthening its AR applications and hardware. Basically, this gives the users an AR experience without requiring them to bear the early costs in the initial stages of deployment.

The sources also mentioned that the upcoming iPad will feature a front-facing 3D sensing module. Apple will eventually be porting these modules towards the rear side of the chassis but in the future. This hardware addition is because the company wants to speed up its efforts of integrating a hardware and software platform to provide a 3D sensing technology and ultimately promote the AR glasses when they come out.

In our previous rumor, it was reported that the cheaper iPad would cost the user $259, but that will obviously be for the base version, which we’re assuming will feature 32GB of onboard storage. There could also be another model, which we feel is going to sport 128GB of internal memory.

Source: wccftech