1. It's a faulty comparison. The iPad survey was taken in February 2010, two months before the iPad came out and the Fire survey was taken in October 2011, 18 months after the iPad came out. In the 20 months between the surveys the iPad has validated the market for tablets. Of course more people want/need a tablet now after seeing all the cool things a tablet (read: iPad) can do over the past year and a half.

2. Apple has a healthy margin on iPads whereas Amazon is reportedly selling the Fire at or below cost. If tablets turn out like phones, then I'd rather be Apple with 5% of the market and 50% of the profit than like Android with more market share and thinner margins.

All that said, as an iPad owner, I did pre-order a Fire since I'm curious to see how a 7" tablet fits into my life. This is what I wrote regarding HP's troubles in the tablet market and is probably why Amazon will success where others have failed (http://martingordon.tumblr.com/post/9049814056/hps-two-probl...):

There’s a glut of 10” tablets on the market. The iPad dominates the market and the ten or so 10” Android tablets do nothing to help HP’s situation there. 7” tablets are completely different when it comes to portability, there isn’t as much competition at this screen size, and Apple has stated that they have no intentions to build a 7” tablet (which means that it’s coming, but it’s not here yet and doesn’t have 80-95% market share like the 10” iPad does). A $250-$300 7” tablet has the opportunity to give HP a nice foothold into the market, and once they do, they can go back and fight for 2nd place in the 10” market. Building 7” marketshare and building consumer mindshare to eliminate also-ran status is the only way HP (or anyone else for that matter) will have a fighting chance in the tablet space.