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Photos: What should be crowned the king of Apple cool?
…fruity innovation and tasty design

By Seb Janacek

Published: Thursday 24 January 2008

Apple's long history of innovative and occasionally quirky design was reinforced with last week's Macworld launch of the wafer-thin MacBook Air laptop. But could this new machine one day figure in the pantheon of Apple's greatest creations? Seb Janacek sifts out his favourite Apple products from more than 30 years of lemons, blind alleys and sheer genius.

1: Macintosh 128K

Arguably the computer that had the biggest influence on personal computing. The Macintosh was launched in 1984 and everything about it was revolutionary, from the consumer-oriented graphical user interface to the mouse - both firsts for a commercially successful computer. Even the history of its development has passed into Mac mythology. The Macintosh set a new paradigm for Apple and the industry as a whole. Without the Mac there'd be no Windows. It was rather cute too - an all-in-one case with a nine-inch monitor. It was also marketed via the famous 1984 commercial directed by Ridley Scott. It's interesting to speculate about where personal computing would be now without the original Mac - the computer for the "rest of us" that Steve Jobs promised would put a dent in the universe.

Photo credit: Creative Commons licence

See what Apple's got up its sleeve for 2008 at this year's Macworld