The backs of Apple (AAPL) employees must look sunburned after the company spent Monday patting them for selling 3 million iPads this weekend. But what does that number really mean?

In Apple's world, sales numbers often swirl into a cider that looks impressive and smells just fine, but mellows after a bit of fermentation. Right now, 3 million sales of Apple's new iPad Mini and its updated full-sized model look brag-worthy.

Those 3 million iPads are more than double the record 1.5 million iPads the company sold during a similar span in March after releasing its third-generation iPad. They are also more than 20% of the 14 million iPads Apple sold last quarter and more than half of the 5 million iPads Apple sold in 2010 after the first version of the device debuted in April of that year.

The iPad's story, however, is no longer strictly about sales, but about the context of those sales.

The 14 million iPads Apple sold in its final quarter were an 18% drop from the quarter before as fans put off purchases until the company released its next big thing. Even though the company still sold 26% more iPads than it did the year before, the combination of lost sales and the increased overhead of iPad Mini production led Apple to miss earnings estimates and dial back its forecast for holiday sales in the first quarter.

Part of the problem is that the iPad isn't the undisputed steamroller Apple grew accustomed to with the iPod and iPhone. The iPad held about half of the overall tablet market in the third quarter, according to IDC, and doubled the share of second-place Samsung. However, Samsung partner Google (GOOG), Amazon (AMZN) and others have produced low-priced, highly acclaimed competitors in recent months and have gnawed away roughly 10 percentage points of Apple's tablet market share in the last year. While the iPad more than quadrupled unit sales between fiscal 2010 and 2011, sales in fiscal 2012 grew only 59% by comparison.

The other issue is that Apple is now staking the iPad's success to a product that brings in less per unit than the original-recipe iPad. The latest Retina-display iPad starts at $499, while the Mini is only a third smaller while knocking $170 off the price. Consumers may love what the smaller iPad does to their wallet, but it comes at a cost to Apple's margins.

If Apple fans and investors remain confident about the iPad in the comment fields, they're somewhat less so on the market floor. Apple's share price has more than tripled in the last two years and is still up by more than 40% this year, but dropped by $100 between April and May and has fallen more than 17% since the iPhone 5 was released in September.

Apple had a good weekend, but the iPad still has a whole lot of work ahead before the holidays.

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