"Consumers will only migrate if there is compelling value on the other platform or the platform they are on becomes burdensome," says Gartner analyst Van Baker. "The ."

Tech analyst Rob Enderle likens the iPad's lead in the nascent tablet market to the iPod's edge over MP3 players in the early 2000s. "Apple is on the path of locking the [tablet] market up," he says. "But they haven't reached the scale that makes them uncatchable yet."

While the iPad's lead is impressive, the tablet market still has a long way to go. Enderle figures the tablet market has a potential of over 300 million units, and there are some 30 million iPads out there today. If Apple continues on its torrid pace, Enderle says, the iPad can reach unbeatable status sometime before 2014 or 2015.

Apple naysayers will point to the success of the Android smartphone in its bid against the market-making iPhone. Why can't the same thing happen in the tablet market? "The carriers assured the quality of the Android phone and picked up a great deal of the marketing load," Enderle explains. "That didn't happen with the Android tablets, which have had both quality and completeness issues."

Android tablets have been riddled with confusion. Google lit the fuse with its Chrome OS, effectively confounding its OEMs, app developers and customers, Enderle says. "Until and unless Google can focus on one platform and get the rest of their application and services up to speed with their cell phone apps, quality, and marketing, it is doubtful Android tablets will reach their potential."