Some of us have been extremely close to Apple. Not so much being acquainted with the people there, although some of us are. It’s about being loyal to Apple gear for a number of years. I can tell you that it hasn’t always been a cake walk. For years, I was regarded as the odd man out, the fellow who refused to get with the program and use Windows as everyone else did.

While I did own a Windows PC for a very short period of time in the mid-1990s, I found that I rarely used it and eventually sold it off. I also reviewed Windows computers from time to time for various publications, but I knew that, after a few weeks, I could send them back.

And return to my Mac.

But Apple doesn’t always make it easy for users of their products. They often do foolish things, and not just in the old days but in the era of the “second coming” after Steve Jobs returned to the company. One of the biggest problems remains online services. Anything related to iCloud, such as mail and synced content, may suddenly become unavailable or get messed up somehow.

Since Apple Music arrived, some subscribers have complained about corrupted iTunes libraries. Tracks would be missing, duplicated, or mislabeled. DRM would be applied even to music you owned free and clear. It got downright confusing, and all you wanted to do was take advantage of a 90-day free trial and see if you really wanted to rent music.

While I haven’t seen any evidence of file corruption on my own equipment, I am not enamored of the flaky manner in which it handles the “For You” listings that are supposedly tailored to my musical tastes. Even though I frequently specify, in Music for iOS, that I do not like an album, it remains in the list. I religiously select the artists I don’t like, using Music’s “I Don’t Like This Suggestion” feature, and they are still there. I also wonder why iTunes still lacks that feature, but it doesn’t matter if it has no impact.

I assume things will get better, and file corruption issues may be resolved or fixed, but it may be too late for some people.

Take Jim Dalrymple of The Loop, a professional musician and veteran tech journalist who has covered Apple since the 1990s. His work background includes a stint at Macworld, and he is well connected. Clearly he has sources within Apple that sometimes feed him exclusives, witness the fact that he will occasionally predict, accurately, whether or not a certain rumored product will actually appear. A terse “nope” is sufficient to confirm the rumor is unfounded, and he’s always right.

Jim is also realistic about is praise and criticisms when it comes to Apple. He doesn’t have blinders, so when something upsets him, you can bet he won’t hold back.

So when Jim complains that “Apple Music is a nightmare and I’m done with it,” you know that he’s really upset. It’s not about a few glitches, but significant deal breakers, and Apple surely has some explaining to do.

In his article on The Loop, Jim disclosed a litany of problems with Apple Music, but one particular incident was clearly one of the straws that broke that camel’s back:

As if all of that wasn’t enough, Apple Music gave me one more kick in the head. Over the weekend, I turned off Apple Music and it took large chunks of my purchased music with it. Sadly, many of the songs were added from CDs years ago that I no longer have access to. Looking at my old iTunes Match library, before Apple Music, I’m missing about 4,700 songs. At this point, I just don’t care anymore, I just want Apple Music off my devices.

Now Jim isn’t blameless. He should have had a full backup of his music, so he’d be protected if something went wrong. I just wonder why he didn’t have a drive with Time Machine at hand, so he’d be able to restore his iTunes library to the condition it was in before installing Apple Music. But he admits that, “I also failed by not backing up my library before installing Apple Music.”

Regardless, that problem and the others detailed in Jim’s article were entirely unnecessary. It appears that Apple Music isn’t as kind in situations where a music library is extremely large. Apple needs to do something to help customers recover their lost music, if possible, and to repair broken databases.

As for me, I’m sticking with Apple Music for now. I do keep multiple backups of my stuff, and I recommend that, if you wish to give the service a try, make sure you can revert to your old music library if things turn bad. I would also hope that Apple is working hard on the problem and solutions will soon be at hand.

I’d also be interested to see how Apple responds to the bad news from someone who was, for years, on their side. I very much suspect it’s a case of all hands on deck to see what can be done.

To Wall Street, a 35% increase in iPhone sales over last year wasn’t enough to keep Apple’s stock from tanking. Selling 47.5 million seems impressive, but some Wall Street analysts said it must be 50 million. Of course you have to wonder where they got those figures, and if they were based on surveys, clearly there’s a problem with the methodology. Or maybe they got them from a dark and damp place.

Regardless, one key concern going forward is that possible financial headwinds in China might impact growth in one of Apple’s key markets. Perhaps, and certainly it appears Apple is aware of the problem. A conservative guidance for this quarter didn’t help, but that’s nothing unusual for Apple, which is almost always conservative.

Another issue that appears to have the financial community spooked is the perception that the Apple Watch has been one huge failure. The situation only got worse because Apple continues to avoid stating actual sales. The category is buried under “Other,” along with the iPod.

So analysts have been trying to infer sales, based on a 49% boost in that category. The key fact is that iPod sales, also classified as part of the “Other” numbers, have declined, so the rest is guesswork. But Apple has provided some clues. So, after nine weeks, the Apple Watch did better than the first iPhone and the first iPad in their first nine weeks. The former tallied sales of one million; the latter three million. But Apple was only too happy to release both fighters, so why should more than three million Apple Watch sales be kept a secret?

Now knowing the numbers exceed three million didn’t stop some fools in the industry analyst business from still delivering estimates of 2.5 million or less. Evidently math wasn’t one of the subjects in which they excelled at college, or they assume that Apple is somehow lying about the sales.

But not everybody assumed the Apple Watch was an egregious failure. A survey from Strategy Analytics has a more positive outlook, calming Apple sold four million units, thus garnering a 75.5% share of the market. This after less than three months of availability. In contrast, the firm estimated that Samsung sold 400,000 smartwatches of various shapes and sizes. While it’s fair to criticize market research firms, at least this one starts from a sensible perspective, that sales have to be more than three million. Remember that is based on Apple’s own statements.

Unfortunately Apple has become its own worst enemy when considering these numbers. The excuse that this data would help competitors doesn’t wash. There are already loads of guesstimates out there from different industry analysts covering a wide range. Even if those numbers are averaged, rivals in the smartwatch business will have at least something to go on.

Besides, Apple didn’t hold back with sales figures for the iPhone and the iPad. Remember, iPad sales continue to fall, despite Tim Cook’s insistence that he is confident about the product and hopes that the new multitasking features in iOS 9, the upgrade cycle, and the business initiative, particularly the IBM marketing deal, will result in a sales turnaround before long.

The problem with silence, as much as it’s presumed to have some sort of strategic advantage, is that it fuels speculation, and some of that speculation doesn’t help Apple. Sure, Apple doesn’t talk about iPod sales, but you know they are going down, and that was indicated in Tuesday’s conference call. That’s to be expected, but you’d think Apple would want to put its best face forward with the Apple Watch, and demand that exceeds supply is something good. That reasonable estimates show Apple garnering the vast majority of the smartwatch marketplace in just nine weeks, despite the backlog, is evidence enough of the product’s potential.

Even if early sales were as bad as some proclaim, that wouldn’t do the Apple Watch in. Apple is clearly in for the long haul, and the product will continue to get better even before the next version is out. WatchOS 2 is currently under development. When it comes out this fall, it will allow apps to run natively and tap important hardware functions, such as the Taptic Engine, Digital Crown, accelerometer, heart rate sensor, speaker and microphone.

Nothing about the next WatchOS should come as a surprise, since it’s clearly detailed on Apple’s site, and was discussed during the WWDC keynote last month. But you have to wonder why the media is still complaining about the supposed lack of apps — there are 8,500 now according to Apple. One long piece in The New York Times made a deal about the lack of a Face-book and Gmail app, among other things, asserting developers are waiting to see how the Apple Watch will do before committing.

Maybe they are waiting for WatchOS 2, so they can build native apps with more features. That would seem to make a lot more sense, but the reporters for the alleged newspaper of record don’t seem to grasp that distinction.

In any case, the key test for the Apple Watch will be the holiday season. With WatchOS 2, more dealers, and perhaps loads of third-party watchbands, the true potential of the product may be demonstrated. But Apple still needs to reveal sales figures without excuses. As you see, not revealing those figures has only fueled unfounded speculation. It certainly didn’t help the stock price.

There’s something about inflated expectations, and it appears Apple just can’t win. If they beat those expectations, that should be a good thing, but if Wall Street decides it still wanted better numbers, as questionable as those estimates might be, well, that’s a bad thing.

So Apple had another blowout quarter. Apple earned higher revenues and higher profits than in any comparable quarter — ever. The company’s own guidance was exceeded. The iPhone and the Mac are growing sales ahead of saturated markets. But success is never enough when it comes to Apple.

Let’s start with Apple Watch sales, or the lack of actual numbers. You see, the “Other” category, in which the Apple Watch is placed, grew 49%. I’ll leave it to the financial wizards in our audience to estimate what that means in total sales. Meantime, Apple is keeping those numbers under the vest, claiming they didn’t want to make it available to competitors. But obviously they aren’t shy about releasing sales figures for iPhones, Macs and even the iPad, which yielded yet another sales drop. Sales of the latter totaled 10.9 million, an 18 percent year over year decline. But there’s hope that the new multitasking features that will debut this fall in iOS 9 will change things for the better.

During the quarterly conference call with the financial community, Apple CFO Luca Maestri said that the Apple Watch sold more units in its first nine weeks than the iPhone or the iPad in their first nine weeks. As a point of reference, Apple sold one million iPhones and three million iPads in the comparable timeframe. So we can assume, then, that Apple sold more than three million Apple Watches, but that’s about as close as it gets. In passing, the rest of the smartwatch industry evidently managed over four million sales during all of 2014. That’s compared to three million-plus-something-or-other in nine weeks.

Apple CEO Tim Cook also responded to the claims of poor sales, such as the recent survey from Slice Intelligence claiming that Apple Watch sales collapsed in June. Indeed, Cook said that June Apple Watch sales were actually higher than in April or May. Those taken in by the controversial survey should take notice. It’s not that Cook is going to lie about any of this, although I’m sure that number crunchers will look over those “Other” figures to try to get a closer handle on the actual numbers.

Cook also raised expectations for high Apple Watch sales during the holiday quarter, reminding his audience that WatchOS 2 would allow for native apps, a problem that’s hurting the current Apple Watch developer environment. This brings to mind the curious article in The New York Times piece that echoed claims that sales were poor, and cited alleged poor response from developers as an example. Coming ahead of the release of the new operating system, the conclusions are certainly suspect.

In all, Apple recorded revenue of $49.6 billion for the June quarter, with net profits of $10.7 billon, or $1.85 per diluted share. This compares to June quarter revenue of $37.4 billion and $7.4 billion in profit last year. The financials were, by the way, above Apple’s usually conservative guidance.

iPhone sales hit 47.5 million units, an increase of 35% over last year’s sales of 35.2 million. Although this was a healthy increase by any estimate, and reportedly ahead of the smartphone market by a large margin, it still wasn’t enough. Some overly anxious Wall Street analysts were predicting sales would top 50 million, but those figures were very likely based on air — hot air. For most analysts, the numbers were right on target.

At a time when PC sales are dropping, Mac sales continue to grow, with sales of 4.8 million Macs, a nine percent increase over last year. Apple attributes some of the growth to the new MacBook. Most of the portable lineup was also refreshed in the spring. The price of the iMac with 5K Retina display was reduced by $200, and a cheaper version was released for the same price as the previous high-end standard definition version.

Now this doesn’t mean there’s no room for other new Macs. There are rumors about a full iMac refresh for late this fall, and maybe the Mac Pro will get some attention. The current version first went on sale in December of 2013.

For the September quarter, the fourth fiscal quarter for Apple, revenue is projected between $49 billion and $51 billion, gross margins between 38.5 and 39.5 percent. Don’t forget that June quarter sales mostly exceeded estimates, and while the current quarter’s numbers seem impressive enough, Wall Street clearly expected more, and thus the stock price decreased in after-hours trading.

That goes to show how Wall Street continues to misjudge Apple, so I shouldn’t be surprised.

The long and short of it is that Apple continues to confound the critics with stellar numbers and yet plenty of skepticism that they aren’t doing enough. The Apple Watch won’t be regarded as a success until real numbers are released, but don’t bet on that happening unless they are really impressive, and not just in line with expectations.

The general perception up to now has been that the Apple Watch has had a mixed customer reaction. Some people love them, but others might reconsider their purchase. A few tech pundits I’ve interviewed admitted they would not have purchased one if they didn’t need it to provide coverage of the product.

Reviews have also been decidedly mixed, citing version 1.0 glitches, partly due to the fact that apps were linked from a paired iPhone rather than run native. That situation is changing, so performance slowdowns are apt to be reduced. The question is whether this and other glitches are enough to reduce satisfaction with the product.

The other issue is usability, with some suggesting it’s a little confusing to use.

But if one survey is correct — and surveys all have margins of error — it appears that customer satisfaction for Apple’s new gadget is off the charts. Based on a survey of 800 Apple Watch owners from Wristly, which claims to be “The largest independent Apple Watch research platform,” a grand total of 97% are satisfied to one degree or another.

Of course, there are levels of satisfaction. Some 31% report they are “somewhat satisfied,” which barely rates above neutral. But 66% were in the “very satisfied/delighted” category. Still encouraging.

In contrast, the original iPhone reportedly delivered a 92% total customer satisfaction rate. The first iPad scored 91%. But I fail to see how those surveys resemble the current one, since Wristly clearly didn’t conduct them. I’m not even sure the company existed until this year; it appears to be a startup from what I see from their site, and that’s a reason that I’m not providing a link.

Typical of the media, however, there isn’t a proper degree of skepticism about these numbers. While I would presume there may be some basis for the Apple Watch ratings, which are actually somewhat mixed if you look more closely at the numbers, don’t forget that the other numbers come from ChangeWave Research, and methodologies are likely to have been quite different.

Yes, I realize user satisfaction of the iPhone and the iPad were actually quite high, but you can hardly compare the ChangeWave data with the data from Wristly.

The fact of the matter is that the Apple Watch may be more an acquired taste than the other gadgets. The iPhone could exist by itself from the very first day, even though it lacked lots of features that took years to add. The iPad was more or less fully formed at the beginning because the OS and apps were enhancements for the most part of equivalent iPhone apps.

But the Apple Watch is mostly an accessory for the iPhone. It can tell time and do some other stuff without being tethered to the iPhone. Watch-Specific functions include the time, alarms, the timer, the stopwatch and even the world clock. In that respect it’s equivalent to the best chronographs. It can also track your physical fitness activities, and store up to 250 songs and 500 photos.You can even use Apple Pay. But notifications and other key functions will require an active connection to your iPhone.

In large part, that’s due to the limits of today’s technology. Apple has packed lots of features into the Apple Watch, and yet retained decent, though not exceptional, battery life.

But in the next few years, I fully expect a new Apple Watch will be announced, and Apple will boast that it no longer needs a connection to the iPhone to provide all of its functionality. It will even have a built-in cellular radio and provide equal or better battery life. When that happens, it’s very likely Apple will create an app for Android users, thus exploding the market potential by several times. It would be roughly the equivalent of releasing iTunes for Windows in 2003, and providing access to Apple Music on Android gear, which is expected to happen this fall.

While the critics are focusing on the lack of features in the current Apple Watch, it’s clear Apple didn’t build this product with the expectation that it would be discontinued if sales for a few quarters weren’t satisfactory. It’s not the same as the Power Mac G4 Cube. After all, when that potential museum piece was discontinued, there were still plenty of Macs from which to choose.

Apple doesn’t focus on the short term, and I am quite sure there are versions of the Apple Watch in the test labs that really are standalone in all respects. By a “few years,” I am not guessing when that version will appear. It may also have essentially the same external form factor, but it would offer all the extra capabilities.

Pricing? Well, that mythical 2018 Apple Watch could be offered with and without a cellular radio, somewhat similar to differences between the iPod touch and an iPhone. The price for the Sport version with cellular capability would be in the same range as the latter, but it would be available at a far lower price via a carrier’s subsidized or financing option.