Personal · My all-time favorites
My Ten Favorite Apple Products of All Time
These aren’t the best-selling or most important Apple products ever made — they’re my favorites, the ten I’ve actually owned and loved over the years, from the Apple IIe I grew up on to the M-series MacBook Airs I carry today. Here’s why each one stuck with me.
01 · The Garage Era · 1983
Apple IIe
This is the computer I remember most vividly from my childhood. It worked really well, and I spent hours playing games on it — Karateka, Castle Wolfenstein, Choplifter, all sorts of things. It had a floppy disk and a disk drive, of course. A great computer.
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02 · The Beige Era · 1984
Macintosh 512K
I remember this one very well — it was our first Macintosh, and I still remember the day we got it. It was monochrome, of course, but that never mattered to me. As a kid I played all my new games on it: Dark Castle, Airborne, some baseball game, and a boxing game whose name I've long since forgotten.
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03 · The Beige Era · 1987
Macintosh II
A big machine, but powerful for its time. This was the computer I used all through college, and it served me well.
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04 · The Beige Era · 1994
PowerBook 540c
We had several PowerBooks back in the day, and I remember this one because it was color and fairly quick by the standards of those old days.
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05 · The Translucent Revolution · 1998
iMac G3
Everyone remembers this one. A truly iconic computer — all those colors, and that all-in-one form factor with the monitor and the computer in one piece. It was also the first computer I owned without a floppy disk drive.
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06 · The Digital Hub · 2001
iPod (1st generation)
I remember this iPod well. The shiny chrome back would smudge with fingerprints the moment you touched it, but the overall build quality was excellent. The screen used what looked like the old Chicago font, and it had that manual scroll wheel you physically turned. You charged it over FireWire. A genuinely revolutionary device for its time.
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07 · The Digital Hub · 2003
Power Mac G5
A computer I used for many years — really good-looking and powerful, with that distinctive perforated aluminum front. Unmistakable.
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08 · The Aluminum Age · 2009
iPhone 3GS
I picked this one because I thought it was just designed well. It felt sturdy, with that white curved back, and the speed was a real step up from the iPhone 3G. There was no Retina screen yet, but to me it was still one of the best iPhones Apple ever made.
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09 · Apple Silicon · 2020
MacBook Air (M1)
I own several of the M-series Airs, and I think they're some of the best products Apple has ever made — extremely fast, light, and a world apart from the MacBook lines that came before. They're an incredible value, almost a no-brainer for anyone shopping for a laptop. An excellent product.
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10 · Apple Silicon · 2020
AirPods Max
When I first put these on they felt too heavy, but I got used to them quickly, and they've turned out to be a fairly good purchase — on the pricey side, sure, but the quality and sound are very good. I've even been able to exercise and jog with them, and I don't bother with the silly case. They've held up well after several years.
Full specs & history →Last updated: 2026-06-30