TIME Magazine on Tuesday published their list of the 50 most influential gadgets of all time, and Apple’s iPhone came out on top. The list included televisions, music players, computers, smartphones and more.
Rather than rank technologies—writing, electricity, and so on—we chose to rank gadgets, the devices by with consumers let the future creep into their present.
Apple’s iPhone was ranked as the number one most influential gadget of all time. The publication says it tops out the list because it “fundamentally changed our relationship to computing and information.”
Apple was the first company to put a truly powerful computer in the pockets of millions when it launched the iPhone in 2007. Smartphones had technically existed for years, but none came together as accessibly and beautifully as the iPhone.
Apple’s device ushered in a new era of flat, touchscreen phones with buttons that appeared on screen as you needed them, replacing the chunkier phones with slide-out keyboards and static buttons.
What really made the iPhone so remarkable, however, was its software and mobile app store, introduced later. The iPhone popularized the mobile app, forever changing how we communicate, play games, shop, work, and complete many everyday tasks.
The iPhone wasn’t the only Apple product to make the list, as the Macintosh came in at third place, because it “forever set the standard for the way human beings interact with computers.” The iPod, Apple’s popular digital music player, which “convinced music fans to upgrade from their CD players en masse,” took ninth place.
The iPad and iBook also made the list, ranking in at #25 and #38 respectively.
The full list of 50 gadgets -which includes the Amazon Kindle, Commodore 64, Atari 2600, Sony Walkman, Motorola Bravo pager, TiVo, the Hitachi Magic Wand (only 10th place? I know many folks that would believe that one should’ve ranked MUCH higher), and more – is available for your reading pleasure at the TIME website.
