The iPad 3 will wait to surface until the spring after all, but the iPad 2 won’t get its full run according to the latest tea leaves which place Apple in the position of yanking the iPad 2 in favor of a midseason replacement model this fall to coincide with the release of iOS 5. While it won’t likely be called iPad 2S, it would fall along the lines of the same strategy Apple used with the iPhone 3GS a couple years ago: take the existing model, boost the specs without changing the inside, and use it as a temptation to get people to upgrade who want something faster, roomier, and with a longer lasting battery. Whether Apple can pull off such specs within the current iPad 2 framework is another matter, as the iPad 2 already uses the hot new dual-core A5 processor and offers a ten hour battery. But the tea leaves instead seem to be pointing to the idea that the iPad’s screen could be the ticket to buying Apple a “new” iPad model for the next six months without having to jump the gun on the iPad 3. In short, here’s what Apple could do to the iPad 2 to make give it a midseason boost on its way to the iPad 3 era.

Screen quality: The iPhone 4 introduced retina display, which offered an essentially perfect display experience to the naked eye. But the iPad 2, while offering a better screen over the iPad 1, couldn’t quite pull that off. Many assumed retina display might arrive in time for the iPad 3. But the tea leaves now say sooner.

Camera boost: The rear facing still camera on the iPad 2, in a word, sucks. It’s not up to par with either the rear facing video camera or the front facing camera. If Apple can wedge a better still camera into an iPad 2S, it’ll make for an easy sell for those who want to use their iPad 2 to take still pictures of something other than their own face.

Colors: Has the white-vs-black era of Apple’s iProducts played out? There’s talk that the next iPhone will be bare metal, perhaps in a choice of real colors, instead of the usual black and white. If so, Apple could go the same route with an iPad 2S.

iOS 5 enhancements: iOS 5 will run on the current iPad 2 and previous iPad 1, but as users have learned over the years, new versions of iOS tend to have more to offer on newer faster hardware. Apple could tie certain high-horsepower features of iOS 5 for iPad to the iPad 2S in the hopes of motivating people to upgrade. This would in turn act as a bridge for when the iPad 3 arrives later this year with iOS 5.2 or iOS 5.3 in tow, with even more model-specific features.

So is an iPad 2S likely this fall? On the one hand, it’s a nice way to leverage the iOS 5 for iPad launch, as well as to motivate those to buy an iPad 2S who skipped the iPad 2 because they couldn’t find one in the early months of barren inventory during launch. Then again, such a move would feel like a solution in search of a problem, as the iPad 2 already has about ninety percent of the tablet market. Only Apple knows for sure, for now. Here’s more on the iPad 3.