Apple Changed The World

Practically since its inception back on April 1, 1976, Apple has repeatedly captured the world's attention thanks in large part to its rebellious underdog attitude and continuous efforts to reset expectations of what's possible from consumer electronics.

In a move many electronics manufacturers questioned in the beginning, the company has also set a shining example of how great customer service and retail experiences can have a significant financial and brand impact on a tech company's bottom line. Opening its first store in 2003, which provided customers with a hip place to hang out, buy products and receive personal tech support from the "Genius Bar," Apple now has over 283 stores worldwide that generated over $1.97 billion in sales in the last quarter of 2009 alone.

Now backed by an army of zealous fans, and recruiting more each day eager to know what the company thinks up next, an entire ecosystem of media outlets has risen to monitor the deeply secretive company's every move in regards to new product launches. Currently at a fever pitch thanks to the announcement of the new Apple iPad, countless analysts have speculated on the industries this product aims to transform, such as print-based media.

Since we, unfortunately, can't shed any more light on what’s to come from the famous brain trust of Steve Jobs and company at this juncture (beyond the iPad), we've instead looked into the past to highlight the top 10 ways Apple has changed the world (pre-iPad), in hopes of satiating your desire to know more about the company's global impact -- at least for the next 10 minutes.

No.10 - Apple invented the Super Bowl ad

Apple's one-minute-long 1984 Super Bowl ad directed by Ridley Scott cost an astounding $1.5 million dollars to produce. But as history shows us, the seemingly foolish investment was one of the smartest branding moves ever made by the company, and is now widely regarded now as a watershed moment in advertising. Broadcast during the third quarter, the ad creatively expressed Apple's long-standing rebellious pride in nonconformity, and boldly introduced the new Macintosh personal computer. Thanks to its jolting theme and classic allusion to Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, the ad generated enormous free publicity for Apple as it was discussed and replayed elsewhere by other media outlets.

Since then, Apple has continued to take full advantage of brilliant marketing as a way to stay at the forefront of consumers’ minds, and generate unprecedented hype and excitement for everything it does. In fact Apple’s recent branding efforts have been so successful that it has led to the development of an entire industry of third-party peripherals (i.e., “iProducts”) and copycats seeking to ride on the tech giant's coattails to achieve their own success.

No.9 - Apple domesticated the computer

Released in 1977, the Apple II computer stands apart for making machines once only viewed as being useful for crunching numbers now part of our everyday lives and virtually everything we do. Though the company may now be known for all manner of famous products, the Apple II was the driving force that pushed Apple to become a successful business, and continued to be sold in various forms even into the early 1990s. Aggressively marketed as the computer for the masses rather than engineers, unlike previous home microcomputers that required assembly on the part of the buyer, the Apple II came fully built and its beige plastic exterior casing was meant to mimic that of a home appliance as opposed to a complex piece of electronic equipment.

Though the original retail price of $1,298 may sound steep for 1977, designer Steve Wozniak's focus on using software and programming to eliminate the need for expensive hardware made the Apple II quite affordable, relative to competing machines. Finally, the company's belief in open collaboration created a robust third-party developer community that helped to quickly build a useful pool of consumer-friendly software that further propelled the Apple II's success as a useful device all consumers could benefit from owning.

No.8 - Apple made art easy

Few people realize that Apple's reputation for being the computer maker of choice for creative minds like graphic designers, photographers, film makers, and musicians is in reality a legacy that began in 1985 with the introduction of MacPublisher. Credited for being the first "what you see is what you get" page layout program, when combined with Apple's companion LaserWriter printer (released later that same year) and an already intuitive Macintosh graphic-based operating system, an entire "desktop publishing" industry was created. In other words, complex printed documents could now be designed and viewed easily onscreen before being printed.

Movies and video editing became another point of focus after Apple's acquisition of Macromedia's Final Cut software, which is now used by film professionals worldwide and was the basis for the more consumer-friendly iMovie. Finally, other acquisitions of Nothing Real and Emagic led to the development of the popular music-making software Garage Band, solidifying the company's dominant role in computing for all major artistic mediums.

No.7 - Apple made tech sexy

After several years of turmoil, Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997 with a clear vision of how to revitalize his then-ailing creation. Though, by today's standard, the original iMac's gaudy plastic colors and clunky all-in-one egg shape may seem like a direct reflection on the bad tastes of the ‘90s, at the time it represented a whole new way of thinking about personal technology design.

Spearheaded by Apple's renowned Senior Vice President of Industrial Design Johnathan Ive, the iMac's dramatically different looks epitomized the company's "Think Different" mentality and proved that consumers saw value in technology that was not only functional, but attractive and personable as well. The original iMac's extreme success was quickly apparent as 800,000 units shipped within the first five months of release and single-handedly restored the company to profitability. It also ushered in a new era of Apple product design that emphasized minimalism, unique shapes and bright color detailing. This focus on design aesthetics has subsequently become a hallmark of Apple's products, and led countless competitors to rethink their former concentration on device performance as the only quality of electronics that is of value to average consumers.

No.6 - Apple made computing easy

Forever focused on the power of software to transform the consumer technology experience, the release of Apple's OS X operating system in 1999 redefined perceptions of how to operate personal computers. Built from the work done by Steve Jobs' other start-up NeXT, which was acquired by Apple in conjunction with his return, the system put logic and ease of use at the forefront while taking advantage of the extreme stability and security offered by UNIX. In the years since its release, OS X and its subsequent upgrades have been an extreme point of pride and differentiation for Apple products versus Windows-based machines, not to mention forming the core basis of its positioning to consumers against more widespread PC alternatives.

No.5 - Apple taught us that touching is OK

Starting with the original Macintosh released in 1984, which is credited as finally popularizing the mouse, Apple has shown consumers there are far better ways to interact with technology than simply through buttons. While the iPhone's groundbreaking touchscreen and touch-friendly UI may be the most obvious and impactful example of this stance, ushering in an entirely new wave of cell phone innovation, advances such as the iPod scroll wheel or the more recent gesture-sensing touchpads found in newer Mac laptops are also great examples of how Apple has advanced touch interaction. Given this history, there's no doubt the geniuses in Cupertino will continue to reset consumer expectations of what's possible by focusing on technology's direct interaction with the human form.

No.4 - Apple put an app monkey on our backs

Before Apple's entry into the space, mobile software development was a slow and hobbled process stuck in an innovation no-man's-land between carriers and handset manufacturers. Channeling the company's long-term embrace of open platforms and love of third-party developers, Apple single-handedly rewrote the book on mobile application creation by encouraging outside developers to set new bars for what could be possible through mobile software in exchange for the ability to sell their creations to the iPhone's exploding user base.

Needless to say, early entrants into the space have long since become millionaires due to this fundamental shift, while we as consumers have benefited from a mind-boggling selection of applications for serving just about every need imaginable. To put this change into perspective, as of September 2009 the iTunes store had recorded over 2 billion application downloads. Competitors such as Palm, Android and BlackBerry, have been scrambling ever since to capitalize on this newly created mobile application market, which is estimated by Gartner to reach $6.2 billion in 2010.

No.3 - Apple destroyed the music industry

How a piece of software originally designed to play music ended up fundamentally changing an entire industry is something baffled music execs are still scratching their heads over even nine years after its initial release. Announced in 2001, even before the iPod, iTunes became something completely different with the launch of the iTunes Store two years later in 2003.

Now, as the No. 1 music retailer in the world, the iTunes Store has sold over 8.5 billion songs (as of September 2009) and provided music fans around the world virtually instant gratification for purchasing and downloading songs anywhere there's internet access. Thanks to the introduction of the iPod Video and expansion of the store to include popular TV shows and movies, in April 2007, iTunes also became the most popular online movie store in the world, selling over 200 million television episodes by October 2008 alone. Not too shabby for a company that started out simply selling computers.

No.2 - Apple made phones boring

The release of the iPhone in 2007 marked the beginning of a tidal wave of mobile innovation that has completely transformed how manufacturers build phones. Featuring a fully integrated iPod video player, web browser and the ability to run thousands of games and other mobile applications, the phone aspect of the iPhone represented only a tiny fraction of the device's capabilities and forever changed consumer expectations of portable electronics. Since its release, phones mimicking everything from the iPhone’s exterior design to its intuitive touch UI have been released by virtually every competing manufacturer, and not without reason. Now available in over 86 countries around the world, over 30 million iPhones have been sold. In the last quarter of 2009 alone, sales of the device reportedly grew by 100% when compared to the previous year, and played a large role in helping Apple set its most profitable quarter ever in the company's entire history.

No.1 - Apple invented the ultimate media player

Over its short lifetime, the iPod has undoubtedly had the biggest impact of any product ever made by Apple. Released at a critical stage in the digitization of music in late 2001, the iPod's promise of allowing users to carry and listen to thousands of songs from a pocket-size device is solely responsible for ushering in the worldwide shift to listening to MP3s.

Though the iPod wasn't the first MP3 player to be marketed to consumers, its unique combination of mass storage space, innovative click-wheel navigation and syncing functionality with iTunes proved to make all the difference, and forever changed Apple's focus as a company. Thanks to continuous innovation, the iPod has now evolved well beyond being a simple music player to become the world's foremost portable media player, and sold a mind-boggling 220,000,000 units (as of September 2009) worldwide throughout its existence.

Undoubtedly, if the current success of the App Store is any indication, iPods will soon become the world's preeminent portable gaming platform as well, adding one more industry in the entertainment field conquered by this amazing device.