A uitable is just storing the data in a Property named 'Data'. I show two examples, one for a matrix and the other a cell array, for syntax prior to and after the 2014b release.
f1 = figure;
myCellTable = uitable(f1,'Data',cell(4,2));
myCellTable.Data{3,2} = 10; % This could be a call to the toc function for time
f2 = figure;
myMatTable = uitable(f2,'Data',zeros(4,2));
myMatTable.Data{3,2} = 10;
So the basic idea is the uitable is an object and we can index it's property with dot-notation (post 2014b). Prior to 2014b we need to get, modify and set, like oyu show above.
f3 = figure;
myCellTable = uitable(f3,'Data',cell(4,2));
CellData = get(myCellTable,'Data');
CellData{3,2} = 10;
set(myCellTable,'Data',CellData);
f4 = figure;
myMatTable = uitable(f4,'Data',zeros(4,2));
MatData = get(myMatTable,'Data');
MatData(3,2) = 10;
set(myMatTable,'Data',MatData);
Edit: Note that the latter syntax still works post 2014b.
