Predicted to be a flop, but early signs suggest Apple Watch sales have been strong — if the less-than-transparent data is to be believed, says Katie Wright

WHEN CEO Tim Cook stepped on to the stage at the Flint Center in Cupertino, California last September and announced the arrival of the long-rumoured Apple Watch, he got a standing ovation.

But reception back in the real world was far frostier. Ever since, press and consumers alike have been questioning the appeal of the bulky gadget with the minuscule battery life and hefty price tag.

The most frequently asked question about the Apple Watch became: is it going to flop?

Now that Cook and co have released their Q3 earnings report, we have a definitive answer, right?

Well, sort of.

Because they don't want to reveal the exact figures, the Wi-Fi-enabled watch is lumped in with iPods, Beats Electronics and Apple TV in the "other products" category, which generated £1.7bn in the three months to the end of June.

Bearing in mind the Watch only hit shops at the end of April, analysts estimate that equates to around three to four million units sold (prices start at £299 and range into the thousands for luxury editions).

So not a flop then?

"Obliterating the competition in an emerging category with one quite expensive product that's tied to one smartphone, is not what I would call a flop," says Wareable.com's Sophie Charara. "The Apple Watch pretty much is the smartwatch market now, with a reported 75% market share, its only real competition in wearable tech comes from Fitbit and Xiaomi which both sell cheaper fitness bands."

Plus, Cook told investors that sales were higher towards the end of the quarter, which puts the new release on track to beat first-year sales for the iPhone and iPad. But in order to keep up that momentum, what Apple calls its "most personal device yet" has got a way to go.

"The Apple Watch hasn't yet solved the problem of what a smartwatch should do," Charara cautions, "but it has got people talking about wearables. Apple's products tend to really break through after a year or two and the Watch needs some more real-world apps to make it more useful."

Right now, 3 million-ish people are still getting to grips with their tech timepieces - if app developers can do enough to keep those early adopters on board and attract the next wave of purchasers, then the Apple Watch, like the iPhone before it, is heading for can't-live-without-it status.

Maybe then Tim Cook will get the applause he deserves.

STRIKE THE WRITE TONE

How often have you fired off an angry email in response to a perfectly reasonable request - or sent an overly-friendly missive when really you were seething with rage? Now a new programme from IBM can help determine whether your emails need to be more cheerful - or assertive - by evaluating your word choice. I tried the Watson Tone Analyzer out with a work-related email I sent to a friend (a tricky balance to strike) and was pleased to discover my tone was, on the whole, open and agreeable. However, the tool didn't analyse the one kiss I chose to put at the end, which, as we all know, is the major minefield to tackle when writing emails. Have a go yourself at tiny.cc/toneanalyzer.

DOUBLE TROUBLE AT INSTAGRAM

If the internet had a referee (and it really should), that ref would have handed Instagram a red card after it took down the account of a man called Andres Iniesta and awarded possession to the Spanish footballer of the same name. Madrid-based Iniesta said his account was disabled and he had no response when he contacted the photo-sharing site. But after he took to blogging platform Medium to share his story, Instagram reinstated the non-footballer's page (@AIniesta) and the FC Barcelona midfielder took up the @AndresIniesta8 handle instead. The moral of the story? If in doubt, blog about it, because there's nothing like a viral story to make a company capitulate.

NO APP-Y ENDING

Could the era of the selfie be on the decline? It could if the closure of a two-year-old start-up is anything to go by. Frontback, the app that simultaneously takes a photo with the front and back cameras of your phone (making a collage comprised of a selfie and your viewpoint), has announced it's shutting down in August. In a blog post, founder Frederic della Faille said that despite amassing two million users, the idea took "too much time and effort to understand... resulting in an infrequent use of our product". While it's not possible to replicate the Frontback effect precisely elsewhere, Instagram's Layout app is the next best thing for piecing together pics.