It was 60 seconds that changed the world.

Or at least that is what Motorola executives were hoping for when they unleashed their grandiose commercial during the recent super bowl. If it wasn’t clear who Moto was gunning for before, it was make quite obvious after the commercial paid homage to Apple’s 1984 Macintosh Commercial.

First, we see everyone dressed in the same white gown, with our main character reading “1984″ (the same year the iconic Apple commercial was released). In the end, our hero breaks through the barriers and gets the fair young lady to remove her symbolic white headphones. Its quite clear that Motorola wants Apple’s share of the tablet market.

Not much is known about the XOOM tablet yet, but a few of the specs are available. For instance, the XOOM has a 10.1 inch display, whereas the iPad has only 9.6. The XOOM also beats the iPad in terms of display with a 1280×800 pixel resolution with 150 pixels per inch. Apple’s iPad on the other hand only produces 1024×768 with 132 PPI. Both tablets boast 720p HD video, but the XOOM is coming with both front and rear cameras.

The main differences will boil down to processor speed and operating systems. We already know that the iPad has a 1GHz Apple A4 custom processor, but what is still relatively unknown is how fast Motorola’s “dual-core” processor will be. Speed aside, the real battle is between the iOS 4, Apple’s mobile operating system, and the Android 3.0 “honeycomb” released by Google. We have all seen how sleek and efficient the iOS 4 has been, but many complaints have been made about the lack of 3G support. iPad users also complain about the lack of internet access for the Wi-Fi only models. Motorola seeks to remedy this problem by making the XOOM upgradeable to 4G coverage.

All in all, there is potential for both the iPad and XOOM to grow in 2011. Tablets are expected to continue to grow at an alarming rate through 2015, with an expected sales of 24.1 million units this year. The question, however, remains…who will be the dominant tablet provider after the XOOM’s expected launch at the end of February? Will it be the iPad, or will it be one of the many new tablets being made by Motorola, Acer, Asus, Samsung, Sony, and even Vizio?