Mobile PC: PowerBook 100 #1 Gadget of All Time; iPod #12

by , 2:35 PM EST, February 22nd, 2005

Mobile PC magazine has named Apple's PowerBook 100 the #1 gadget of all time, and the original 5 gigabyte iPod the #12 gadget. In an article titled "The Top 100 Gadgets of All Time," Mobile PC looked at mobile devices that definitively changed our lives. Entries include everything from the Rubik's Cube, the Honer Harmonica, Mattel Football II, and the telephone. Apple products were listed four times.

Citing the 1991 original PowerBook 100's size, ergonomics, and design, Mobile PC said the rest of the industry "aped Apple," and that the PowerBook 100 "turned notebook computers into mainstream products and ushered in the era of mobile computing that we're still living in today."

The article called Apple's decision to move the keyboard toward the screen the "greatest and most lasting innovation" for mobile computers as it offered proper and more natural room for the user's wrists.

The article's listing for the original iPod (2001) is more direct, saying: " It wasn't the first hard-drive audio player, it was expensive, and it worked only with Macintosh computers. But the original iPod cracked the portable audio market wide open with its ease of use and to-die-for aesthetics."

The PowerBook 500 (1994) was named the #22 top gadget of all time, with Mobile PC listing several firsts for the laptop computer industry, including the first stereo speakers, the first touch pad, the first expansion bay, the first PC Card slot, and the first "curvaceous case." The magazine said that the PowerBook 500 set the design agenda for portable computers for the next 10 years.

Apple's Newton MessagePad 120 (1994) was named the #39 gadget, and rounds out Apple's fourth listing. Noting that the Palm Pilot changed mobile computing, Mobile PC said "the Newton MessagePad 120 did everything the Palm Pilot did, except sell," and that it came out two years earlier than Palm's entry into the market.

Apple had more entries than any other company in the list except Sony, who contributed six (two Walkman models, the Sony CD player, the original transistor radio, a digital camera, and the boom box). Other products listed include satellite mobile phone, the abacus, the MagLite flashlight, the original Fuzzbuster, Texas Instrument's Speak & Spell, and many more.

The Top 100 Gadgets of All Time