QuickTime and FaceTime are useful but I never thought of them as especially innovative. HyperCard, OSX, the phones, those really moved things forward independently of the rest of the industry. Perhaps I don't appreciate the software side enough.
This is only for really old people. I entered Apple's ecosystem 20 years ago and I've never seen half of these products in real life.
I'm surprised that The Verge went ahead with this, but knowing the state of things, I'm sure they coded some guy's idea and never thought about the (tiny) demographic interested in this.
I feel that anything that was a brand new thing in its time should rank highly: Hypercard, Apple I, original Macintosh, OS X, PowerBook 100, original iPhone.
HyperCard was a revelation to me in high school. it piqued such an interest in technology for me that i fully pivoted from exploring civil engineering to computer sciences.
Live rankings currently have Mac OS X first... h... how?
Apple make so so much wonderful hardware! They always have. Their software on the other hand is near universally awful. I love my Macbook, but my gosh, I do not love whatever the latest flavour of macOS is that Apple have decided to throw on their update servers this year. It just so happens that I also enjoy Unix, so I spend a lot of my time in a terminal - but Apple don't get to claim credit for that!
EDIT: OK. It just refreshed and is now showing Mac OS X as 36th over all. Crisis of faith averted.
This just shows the hold Apple has on our collective minds. No such showboating for ibm, Microsoft, Amazon or Google. May be Google and Amazon are still young relatively. IBM totally is out of tech people’s minds and they themselves think of them as a consulting company.
I think the MacBook Pro 2015 was probably unrivalled as a laptop for around 6 years, in terms of build quality, specification and… sheer love. I had a work issue machine and absolutely worshipped it, so I was sad not to see that here.
I remember when Apple unveiled the first ever MacBook Air. That was one of Jobs’ all-time greatest presentations, and it was a huge step forwards that still influences the laptops we use today.
Also missing… the white Apple earphones that came with the iPod! They didn’t sound great but they carried so much COOL for most of the noughties.
I think FaceTime ought to do well here too. That’s done more to bring the 1980s vision of “everybody will video call all the time” into reality than anything else I think (I know Apple weren’t the first, but they made it ubiquitous).
Well for me it would be the M1 macbook air - apple silicon, no fans, extreme battery life and after like 2 decades of barely changing laptop experiences whew this thing was _fast_ too. Such a small powerful thing to have it was amazing. (still have mine, going strong).
Plus Mac OSX Mavericks. Guess the last really nice OS launch that simply did fixes and perf improvements (memory compression, ...) instead of slowing the machine down or adding friction. these were the days when people would look forward to a new mac os, not fearing another bullshit.
I think this list is lacking without the iPod Socks. Clearly the highest rank textile product Apple ever sold, which has to put it somewhere on the master list, no?
There are a lot of "original" models at the top of the list.
While they were groundbreaking, as actual products they kind of sucked (eg too little RAM, missing very key features, etc). The original made for great demos, but the second or third iteration was actually the great product.
The Mac Plus was where things really took off for the Mac, the iPhone really hit its stride with 4, the iPad 2 was way better than the iPad 1, etc.
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[ 4.9 ms ] story [ 37.8 ms ] threadhttps://www.theverge.com/cs/tech/900477/apple-50-anniversary..., or click "See results"
I'm surprised that The Verge went ahead with this, but knowing the state of things, I'm sure they coded some guy's idea and never thought about the (tiny) demographic interested in this.
This ranking is fun and the as-of-now results mostly track.
1. Original iPhone
2. M1 Chip
3. Original iPod
4. Original Macintosh
5. Mac OS X
Though I’d put them in a different order.
Hardest choice for me:
Apple Extended Keyboard 2 vs TiBook.
Had both, Used AEK2s for a decade or more, still have the TiBook with Myst on it.
Apple make so so much wonderful hardware! They always have. Their software on the other hand is near universally awful. I love my Macbook, but my gosh, I do not love whatever the latest flavour of macOS is that Apple have decided to throw on their update servers this year. It just so happens that I also enjoy Unix, so I spend a lot of my time in a terminal - but Apple don't get to claim credit for that!
EDIT: OK. It just refreshed and is now showing Mac OS X as 36th over all. Crisis of faith averted.
I remember when Apple unveiled the first ever MacBook Air. That was one of Jobs’ all-time greatest presentations, and it was a huge step forwards that still influences the laptops we use today.
Also missing… the white Apple earphones that came with the iPod! They didn’t sound great but they carried so much COOL for most of the noughties.
I think FaceTime ought to do well here too. That’s done more to bring the 1980s vision of “everybody will video call all the time” into reality than anything else I think (I know Apple weren’t the first, but they made it ubiquitous).
Plus Mac OSX Mavericks. Guess the last really nice OS launch that simply did fixes and perf improvements (memory compression, ...) instead of slowing the machine down or adding friction. these were the days when people would look forward to a new mac os, not fearing another bullshit.
While they were groundbreaking, as actual products they kind of sucked (eg too little RAM, missing very key features, etc). The original made for great demos, but the second or third iteration was actually the great product.
The Mac Plus was where things really took off for the Mac, the iPhone really hit its stride with 4, the iPad 2 was way better than the iPad 1, etc.