‘A genuine masterpiece’: The 15 best Apple gadgets of the last 50 years, according to you | Daily Reports Online
50 years of Apple
We’re celebrating Apple’s 50th birthday with a week of content about the tech giant. It covers everything from personal recollections from our writers to the greatest — and worst — Apple gadgets as voted by you, and you can read it all on our 50 years of Apple page.
Apple is 50 years old on April 1, having been founded all the way back in 1976 — so we thought it was an appropriate time to poll the TechRadar readership on what the greatest Apple gadget has been across those five decades.
And there are a lot to choose from — starting with the Apple I (a computer designed and hand-built entirely by co-founder Steve Wozniak) in 1976, and going all the way to the MacBook Neo that made its debut in March 2026.
We know TechRadar readers are a smart bunch, and after we put out a call on the TechRadar WhatsApp channel, here’s how you voted.
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15. Apple Watch (2015)
- What we said in 2015: “An expensive convenience gadget”
Our review talked about a lightweight and comfortable fit, and an appealing OLED display, though we were rather confused about what exactly the device was for. Today’s models are much more useful and powerful, and give a much better answer to that question.
14. iMac G4 (2002)
- What they said in 2002: ‘Flat-out powerful and pretty’ (USA Today)
On to the iMac G4 from 2002, and the design alone earns this desktop computer a place on the list: its flat-panel 15-inch display was innovative enough, but then Apple stuck it on an adjustable metal arm attached to a white dome base — a truly iconic Mac design.
The computer came with a PowerPC G4 processor inside, as well as either 128MB or 256GB of RAM, and storage of up to 60GB. This was still the era of optical drives as well, and indeed Apple pushed the iMac G4 as a central hub for music, photos, and DVD movies.
13. iMac G3 (1998)
- What they said in 1998: “The New VW Beetle of Computers” (San Francisco Chronicle)
Before the iMac G4 we had the iMac G3, and the older Mac gets a higher spot on our list. The distinctive colored CRT display (designed by a young Jony Ive), the easy internet connectivity, and the bold decisions (no floppy drive) all combined to create a classic.
Before this point, computers had largely been boring, beige boxes, but the iMac G3 changed all that. It helped put Apple back in the public’s attention as a manufacturer of electronics, and as a company that was willing to push the boundaries of its technology.
12. Apple II (1977)
- What they said in 1977: “We’re here for the hobbyist” (Steve Jobs)
Not the first Apple computer — as you can tell by its name — but the one that really put Apple on the map for the first time. In 1977, ready–to-use consumer computers barely existed, so the Apple II marked a genuine breakthrough expansion for the technology.
This was a computer that could be used by people who weren’t hobbyists or IT techs, and the subsequent additions of the Disk II floppy drive and of course VisiCalc – the first spreadsheet program – helped to consolidate the Apple II’s place in history.
11. AirTag (2021)
- What we said in 2021: “An invaluable and easy-to-use tool”
Apple often arrives in a new product category with a device that’s simple and elegant enough to surpass what other manufacturers had previously been doing, and so it was with the AirTag: it instantly became the best Bluetooth tracker (for Apple users, at least).
It’s affordable, lightweight, waterproof, easy to use, and precise in its operations, and it comes with a variety of neat optional accessories too — even if it’s now been succeeded by the AirTag 2. A perfect example of how Apple can quietly disrupt the market for a device — although in this case it did have to push out an ‘anti-stalking’ firmware update.
10. MacBook Pro (2021)
- What we said in 2021: “A mightily impressive creative laptop”
The Apple MacBook Pro line hasn’t always met with universal acclaim since its inception in 2006, but the 2021 model got just about everything right: it ditched the butterfly keyboard, and the Touch Bar, and the legacy ports, and made the MacBook Pro a great laptop again.
This model also marked the debut of the M1 Pro and M1 Max, showing Apple really getting into its stride with chipsets, and balancing superb performance with top-tier battery life. There was the introduction of the notch too — and we’ve all got used to that now.
9. iPod 3rd gen (2003)
- What they said in 2003: ‘Simply the best-designed MP3 player we’ve seen” (CNET)
You may not remember the 3rd-gen iPod, but it was a significant launch: it introduced a fully touch-sensitive interface with no moving parts, and the 30-pin dock connector (replacing FireWire), and is the only iPod ever with four distinct buttons under the screen.
With the launch of iTunes for Windows later in the same year (note the background in the image above) and support for USB 2.0, this was also the iPod that opened up the iconic music player to users outside of Apple’s ecosystem. You could say it was the iPod that really helped the device to go mainstream.
8. iPod mini (2004)
- What they said in 2004: “It’s difficult to believe that there’s a hard drive in there” (Macworld)
The iPod mini built on the success of the 3rd-gen model with a smaller form factor and some funky colors, and it struck a chord with music fans — while it lacked some of the features of its rivals (no FM radio!) it made up for it in terms of style and user interface.
Just about anyone who owned one of these iPods back in the day will speak fondly of it (and about that time in popular music, too). It was a music player for the masses, and it introduced the click wheel that would later be adopted by the larger iPod as standard.
7. Macintosh (1984)
This is the original Mac, trailed by the ‘1984 advert’ directed by Ridley Scott that aired at the Super Bowl, and the first personal computer with a graphical user interface to actually grab mainstream attention. It’s fair to say the first Mac changed computing, and Apple — it was a genuine masterpiece.
The all-in-one design, the mouse peripheral, the 3.5-inch floppy disk drive — the 1984 Macintosh was a true trailblazer in so many ways, and its influences can still be seen today, 40 years on. And it’s a testament to Apple as a company that it’s only seventh on our list…
6. iPhone X (2017)
- What we said in 2017: “The closest to smartphone perfection Apple has ever got”
Few iPhone launches have attracted as much buzz and attention as the iPhone X in 2017 — the 10th anniversary of the iPhone, of course. After the original Apple iPhone reimagined what a phone could be in 2007, the iPhone X went and did it again a decade later.
OLED instead of LCD, a display notch that we didn’t even know we needed, Face ID, and the removal of the Home button for the first time. The iPhone X would set the template for phones for years to come, and we were very impressed by this “huge gamble” from Apple.
5. M1 MacBook Air (2020)
- What we said in 2020: “Its M1 chip is a real game-changer”
Steve Jobs may have pulled the original MacBook Air out of a manilla envelope to general amazement in 2008, but it was the 2020 revamp of the laptop that realized its full potential: a super-slim laptop that excelled in terms of performance and battery life.
This laptop also ushered in the Apple Silicon era, which has proved so successful for the company’s computers. As we wrote at the time, it showed that Apple couldn’t just match what Intel and AMD were doing with their own processors, it could actually surpass them.
4. iPhone 4 (2010)
- What we said in 2010: “We liked nearly everything on the iPhone 4”
There’s no doubt the iPhone 4 is one of the most significant Apple phones in history: it had a premium feel (moving away from the curved plastic of its predecessors), a sharp, high-res Retina display, Apple’s own custom silicon, and a front camera for the first time.
Just as important was the launch of iPhone OS 4 that accompanied the iPhone 4. With support for multitasking for the first time, it meant apps could run in the background, and of course the phone was also the first device that FaceTime was ever demoed on. Even some reception issues (dubbed ‘Antennagate’) didn’t stop us from awarding it 4.5 stars back in 2011.
3. iPod Classic (2007)
- What they said in 2007: “For this price, it’s a steal” (CNET)
You could argue that the iPod Classic, launched six years after the original iPod, was when the music player found its ultimate form. It boasted an all-new metal enclosure, up to 160GB of storage (enough room to fit 40,000 songs), and up to 40 hours of battery life.
It maintained the color screen and the video playback of its immediate predecessors, and while the sleeker and more modern-looking iPod Touch arrived at the same time, this was the model that serious audiophiles relied on to hold their music libraries for years.
2. iPod 1st gen (2001)
- What they said in 2001: “The world’s coolest – and dare we say best – MP3 player” (PCMag)
Apple wouldn’t be where it is today without the iPod. You could say that about several of its products, but this music player transformed digital music, portable electronics, and media consumption, and helped to set the stage for the first iPhone that would follow.
Yes, the 1st-gen model only worked with Macs, and didn’t initially sell in huge volumes — but it showed how slick and polished a portable music player could be, with the scroll wheel and the ‘1,000 songs in your pocket’ tagline both ingenious touches from Apple.
1. iPhone (2007)
- What we said in 2007: “What the iPhone does right, it does outstandingly”
Yes, it’s the first iPhone, a device you could very reasonably argue changed the world. It wasn’t the first smartphone to launch, but it redefined what a smartphone could be, and set the template that almost all mobile handsets are still following some 20 years later.
The multitouch screen (a mere 3.5 inches in size), the software keyboard, and true mobile internet were revolutionary for the time, and once the App Store launched the year after (“there’s an app for that”), the iPhone’s prominent place in Apple history was assured.
