10 ways Apple really has changed the world

From the beginning, Apple liked to proclaim it was inventing the future with products that would change the world.

That visionary impulse often comes across as stubbornness, with Apple ignoring what the pundits say - as well as overwrought when Apple puts on its "it's all amazing and revolutionary" dog-and-pony shows.

Even when cofounder Steve Jobs wasn't at Apple, that attitude has prevailed. Yet no tech company in the past 38 years has done as much user-facing innovation as Apple. Never mind that most people don't use Macs or iPads. And even when it doesn't win the market, Apple defines the market time and again.

Here are the 10 most significant products Apple has created, ones that really have changed the world.

1. iPhone: The end of the mobile phone, the beginning of mobile computing

The iPhone debuted in 2007, with Apple's App Store launching a year later, making the iPhone no longer an iPod that could make calls.

Apple smartly created several rich apps - iMovie, GarageBand, Pages, Keynote, Numbers - that to this day are unrivalled as mobile apps and show that a smartphone isn't a smartphone that supports email, as the once-dominant BlackBerry had been, but a computer in its own right. Apple had this vision back in 1993 with its Newton MessagePad, which clearly presages the iPhone of 2007.

Today, Android rules much of the smartphone world; like Windows used the Mac as inspiration, Android used the iPhone.

The iPhone really is an icon and a powerful machine at that.

2. Macintosh: Defining the computer for the rest of us

Steve Jobs didn't create the Mac, but he did create the mythos around it and recognised that it heralded a new, better way to use computers.

Ironically, the horribly expensive Mac became the emblem of computing for the masses, a human device for real people who had seen computers as unfathomable tools used only by engineers and scientists.

Microsoft took the core principles of the Mac's graphical, direct manipulation interface, itself inspired by work at Xerox PARC, and brought them to Windows, delivering the promise of the Mac to the masses for real.

Today, the approach pioneered by the Mac is simply how computers work.

3. OS X: No operating system does it better

At the core of the Mac today is its Mac OS, Apple's Unix-based operating system that remains the leader in intuitiveness and ease of use, yet offers sophisticated capabilities from data detectors to malware detection that actually work. The tight integration and intentionality of the OS and Apple's bundled apps create a superior experience, even if many users don't access much of what they could.

In its 16 years of existence, Mac's OS' have pulled off the neat trick of evolving significantly while working as you'd expect. Each version arrives fresh and familiar. Microsoft certainly hasn't had that happy result in its Windows versions over that same period, with two wins and two flops.

4. iPod: The music world, reinvented

After Steve Jobs' 12-year journey in the wilderness of Next and Pixar, he returned to a near-dead Apple - and came up with the iPod.

MP3 players already existed, but none really mattered. Portable CD players and the industry's portability grandfather, the Sony Walkman, still ruled.

In 2001, the iPod changed all that, thanks to a better user experience. It also changed the music industry: Songs now mattered, not albums, and with the iTunes Store, Apple shifted the distribution of music from physical stores to downloads. The music business - and music listening - in 2017 bears little resemblance to the experience in 2001.

The iPod also changed Apple, converting the computer company into a consumer technology company, which is the source of its strength today.

5. App Store: A digital store for a digital world

Remember when software was a digital thing on an analogue disk? It was back before there was an app for that.

The App Store did more than distributing bits as bits: It introduced the notions of curated content (which developers hate but has kept iOS largely malware-free), and it made possible the notion that you buy apps that can run on multiple devices you own - a major break from traditional licenses.

Apple understood early on that in a digital world, endpoints are federated, and the software industry needs to think beyond physical installations. Now, an app store is the way it's done, including at Google and Microsoft.

6. iPad: The PC, reinvented - and the TV, reinvented

There were tablets, or at least slates, on the original 'Star Trek' TV series in the 1960s. In the modern PC era, there've been Windows tablets since at least the XP days, but none could compete with the iPad.

The iPad was the first tablet that people wanted, and spawning a copycat industry (some copies predated the iPad itself, based on rumours). But no one does it as well as the iPad.

Tablets now sell as many units as PCs do, and the iPad was the fastest-adopted mass technology in human history. Tablets can be your mobile PC, but they're as likely to (also) be your personal TV, among other items. Amazing.

7. Touch: The gestures we all use came from Apple

It doesn't matter what devices or operating systems you run, when it comes to touch gestures, they all work very much the same way - at their core, Apple's way.

Apple has vigorously protected some gestures through patents, but the basic gestures it introduced on the iPhone are practically universal. They've become like mouse movements, used by everyone.

That universality has quickly let the gesture approach to computing take off, as both developers and users can focus less on learning the UI and more on, well, using it. Most of Apple's impact has been on mobile devices, but its adoption of touch to computers via touch-enabled mice and trackpads probably means when touch PCs finally get popular, they'll use Apple's gestures, too.

8. Apple Watch: perfectly connected

Launched in 2015, the Apple Watch is essentially an extension of your iPhone, on your wrist.

Coming packed with a whole host of apps including Messages, Mail, Weather, Maps, Calendar, Passbook, Music and Photos, Apple wanted to carry over as many features from the iPhone to the Watch as possible. 

And while there are other smartwatches on the market, nothing in terms of design or usability comes close. Although, like with the iPhone other tech giants (notably LG, Samsung and Huawei) are closing the gap in terms of specs. 

The Apple Watch will still be people's go-to archetypal smartwatch.

9. Apple TV: Streaming is just the beginning

Basically a media server appliance, the first (white) Apple TV in 2006 was not very good. PC makers have been pushing media servers for years, as unsuccessfully as they had been pushing tablets. Apple needed to rethink the problem, which the second (black) Apple TV did.

It wasn't a media server, but rather, a new kind of set-top box that draws programming from on-demand services (first iTunes; later Hulu and many TV networks). Plus, unlike competing devices, it acted as a relay point for all sorts of entertainment from users' devices: Macs, PCs, iPhones, iPads, and iPod Touches.

The Apple TV is a content nexus, and that notion fits nicely in the mix of personal and connection that other Apple technologies simultaneously proffer.

The latest Apple TV (4th gen) comes with thousands of apps that you can browse in its app store and install easily. Nice.

10. Autodiscovery networking: Connecting a connected world

IT has long hated Apple networking technology because it's chatty, inefficient, and not concerned about IT control. But if you want things to connect in the world of people, you count on Apple technology.

Want to share files or music on a Mac? It's automatic, thanks to built-in discovery protocols. Want to print from an iPad or iPhone? Select a printer and let AirPrint do the work, no drivers needed. Want play music at someone's house? Turn on AirPlay (if they have an AirPlay-enabled device). It's that simple.

Apple knows the secret: It's about connecting, not networking.