Apple at 50: the surprising gear that didn’t make our top 50 Apple products of all time
Over the last few days we’ve counted down our 50 best-ever Apple products but there are quite a few that didn't make the cut - here are the most surprising
Recently we counted down our 50 best-ever Apple products – you can check out our full countdown. The top 50 was chosen from the Stuff team’s favorites all compiled democratically into a rather large spreadsheet. But what were the products that surprisingly just missed out? The iconic stuff that nobody gave a second thought to? I’ll explore some of them here.
iPhone (2007)
Yes really. The first iPhone didn’t make our list. It is surprising because it’s such an iconic product – undoubtedly one of the most iconic products of all time and I still remember where I was when it was announced. But this first version was really deeply flawed – the phone supported only 2G (and Edge) as the world moved to 3G, while it was expensive and the App Store had yet to come into existence (it launched in July 2008) so the apps were very limited. The iPhone 3G and iPhone 4 did make our list – both of which are tremendously better products.
MacBook (2015)
The true successor to the ‘manilla envelope’ MacBook Air 1st generation from 2008 (here’s the famous Steve Jobs reveal), the simply named MacBook was a great concept, but it was killed by a high price and the MacBook Air being so good. It was also the start of Apple’s butterfly keyboard woes (detailed by designer Jony Ive in the video above) which led to class actions and a replacement program. And there was only one USB-C port, which was a bit of a problem if you were charging but wanted to plug something in…
iPod nano 1st gen (2005)
Why this isn’t in our list is a little crazy, but the iPod mini (2004) did make it, as did the 6th generation ‘square’ nano. As Craig Grannell noted in our main feature: “over its dozen-year run the iPod nano lurched through seven wildly different designs,” so perhaps this one just wasn’t different or memorable enough. I did go to the launch though, which took place in the BBC TV Centre, now just plain-old Television Centre.
Macintosh 128k (1984)
This is the first-ever Mac. For the 50th anniversary Apple chose to make it into a cake which indicates that Apple sees it as its most iconic early product – not a surprise considering there is clear DNA shared with today’s Macs. But while other early Macs did make the cut, notably the 1990 Macintosh Classic, this was left out. I can only apologise, but the voting was clear.
Mac mini M4 (2024)
While the Mac mini M1 from 2020 was Apple Silicon in an old shell, the M4 version did the desktop equivalent of what the MacBook Neo seems to be doing – making Macs more interesting and more accessible. The M4 Mac mini downsized but packed in the ports and performance at a great price point. It was a total no brainer upgrade. Expect it to get M5 this year.
Dan Grabham
Editor-in-Chief 
