“Well That’s Interesting” ⇥ twitter.com

Speaking of Marco Arment, he tweets thrice:

Well that’s interesting, iPad2,6.

I’m guessing iPad2,5 is the Wi-Fi iPad Mini and 2,6 is a 4G model. And it’s based on the identical SOC and other guts as the 32nm iPad 2.

It makes a ton of sense that the iPad Mini would be an iPad 2 with a smaller (non-Retina) screen and case. And it’s very Apple.

The iPad 2,4 model is the current $399 iPad 2, with the 32nm process A5 chip.

Update: On that note, Arment fleshed out his speculation:

The much more likely explanation is that iPad2,5 and iPad2,6 are the new “iPad Mini” in Wi-Fi and GSM, and I haven’t recorded the likely iPad2,7 CDMA version yet.

If so, this suggests that the iPad Mini is, effectively, an iPad 2: an A5 with 512 MB of RAM and enough GPU power to drive the Gruber Display, but not a Retina Display.