Which new Apple product do people like the most?

What was the most popular item unveiled at Apple's big launch last week? And what has the launch event done for Tim Cook's standing among social media users?

 

The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus were the least popular of the products launched by Apple last week – at least that is what chatter on social media seems to suggest. 

 

According to analytics firm TalkWalker, which looks at 150 million different sources to track online sentiment, on the launch day itself (September 9),14.6 per cent of the comments about the iPhone were positive, compared with negative comments which made up 11.3 per cent of messages. 

 

Apple's iPay system – which will allow users to pay by swiping their device in the same way to using an Oyster card – started out as the most popular product unveiled on the night, but negative sentiment has caught up with positive over the week, both reaching 21 per cent of all chatter about it online. 

 

The Apple Watch appeared to be more popular than the iPhone, with 17.5 per cent of comments expressing positive views, compared with 11.5 per cent that were negative. 

 

In the week that followed, the new iPhone's popularity has dipped even further, with positive sentiment dropping to 12 per cent of comments, while the Watch has grown in popularity, with one in five comments praising the device. 

 

Meanwhile the stats appear to suggest that Cook's popularity has really declined since the launch. 

 

In the days before the launch – when he was, in fact, fighting the fire of the iBrute hack – he scored a 38 per cent positive ranking across social media. On the launch day that had dropped to 22.2 per cent – although the proportion of negative sentiment had also fallen, to 12.9 per cent. 

 

During the week after launch, however, Steve Jobs' successor found positive sentiment about him expressed on social media falling to 16.8 per cent – with negative messages creeping up to 16.9 per cent. 

 

Talkwalker chief executive Robert Glaesener believes there is still “a healthy respect” for Apple, but he said: 

 

“While we saw growing popularity for the Apple Watch, we also saw a drop in enthusiasm for the iPhone 6 with questions over need vs cost, an emerging negative trend on iPay, based around issues of hacking and privacy, alongside a fall in positive sentiment for Tim Cook”.

 

How closely will this tie in with behaviour? Well if the pre-orders are anything to go by, Cook will not need to lose any sleep just yet.