More than 3,500 apps are already available for the Apple Watch

Man, it must really suck to be Apple. All the company wanted was 1,000 apps to launch alongside the Apple Watch and it ended up with more than 3,500. A damn shame. Sarcasm aside, this is excellent news for Apple, as apps are the most important part of a product such as this and 3,000 apps is better than most platform launches. This is especially impressive when you consider how hard it has been for developers to put their apps on the Apple Watch.

During Apple’s second quarter 2015 earnings conference call on Monday, CEO Tim Cook said that Apple Watch customers now have access to more than 3,500 apps designed specifically for the new device. In comparison to previous platform launches, Apple Watch is ahead of the game, Cook said. For example, when the iPhone App Store opened in 2008 it featured a selection of about 500 apps, while iPad launched with around 1,000 platform specific titles. Cook said Apple was hoping to beat the 1,000-app mark for Apple Watch’s debut, but ended up with around 3,000 titles at launch. “And we thought it would be great if we were able to do that by a little bit, and as I’ve mentioned before, we now have over 3,500 apps in the App Store for the Watch,” Cook said. “We couldn’t be happier about how things are going from that point of view.” For products like iPhone, iPad and now Apple Watch, a thriving app ecosystem draws direct corollaries with strong hardware sales and device stickiness.