Apple products are among the most-awaited gadgets of the year and the iconic company has a great track record when it comes to getting the cash registers ringing.

The second half of this year is likely to see the launch of the next-generation iPad Air and iPad Mini tablets, and now a dummy of the iPad Air 2 with Touch ID has popped up online, further fueling speculations.

The iPad Air 2 mock-up was spotted by French website Nowhereelse.fr on Tuesday, June 17. The site has a good track record when it comes to giving a peek into upcoming Apple products.

The iPad Air 2 replica which is non-functional has been floating around in China and Japan for a while now and suggests that the next-gen tablet from Apple will come with a Touch ID-enabled home button. While no major design changes are expected in the iPad Air 2, the dummy model shows that the volume buttons on the tablet will be tweaked and become more elongated and marginally recessed into the case when compared to the current iPad Air where the buttons stick out.

A new speaker grille can also be espied and it boasts of a single row of holes on each side of the Lightning dock. The current-gen iPad Air has two rows of small circular holes.

According to Nowhereelse.fr, the dummy model is missing the lock button/mute switch, which is usually near the volume button. However, only a circular cavity is in the spot where the mute switch should have been. The pictures of the mock-up iPad Air 2 also show off an empty home button surrounded by a silver ring, similar to what is found on the company's iPhone 5s smartphone that boasts of the Touch ID fingerprint sensor, a feature that is widely expected to make its way to all future iPads.

The images of the alleged iPad Air 2 dummy also reveal the existence of a space for a microphone adjacent to the camera hole. However, previously, the microphone slot was elongated and seems to have evolved into a circular design for the iPad Air 2.

While the leaked images do not give details of the anticipated specs for the device, previous reports and rumors point to the iPad Air 2 packing in the next-gen A8 processor. However, the screen resolution is expected to remain unchanged at 2048 x 1536 pixels. The iPad Air 2's primary camera, however, is anticipated to see an improvement from 5 megapixels to 8 megapixels. The secondary camera is expected to increase from 1.2 megapixels to 1.5 megapixels.

The authenticity of the leaked images is circumspect and it remains to be seen if the iPad Air 2 indeed imbibes these changes.