Tim Cook says Watch attracting more developer interest than iPhone, iPad at this point

The Apple Watch has only been available for a very short time, but it’s already attracting more developer interest than the iPhone or iPad did early on. That’s the message Apple CEO Tim Cook gave to an interviewer from the Chinese-language version of Bloomberg Businessweek.

According to the article, “Developers are working on more than 3,500 apps for the gadgets, he said. That’s well ahead of the 500 apps available for the 2008 edition of the iPhone and the 1,000 for the first iPad in 2010, he added.”

Cook also confirmed what most tech bloggers had suspected — that the gold versions of iPhone, iPad, MacBook and Watch were created in part as a response to the popularity of the color in China. The country is now responsible for 29% of Apple’s revenue.

During the interview, Cook noted that Apple is supporting a tech education program in China in which more than 180 schools are testing a program that covers the gamut from music composition using GarageBand to teaching hearing-impaired children how to use smartphones. The company plans to expand the program another 50% by the end of the year.