Tech Revolutions: Products Tell the Story

The unpunctual Steve Jobs frequently referred to the "post-PC" world. And whenever he did that, our integral stave would get a scra nervous. After all, the name of this site happens to be PCWorld, and Steve Jobs was often right when atomic number 2 declared something toast (see: floppy disks, optical drives, FireWire, brick-and-mortar euphony stores, phones with buttons, and netbooks).

To run Jobs's "post-PC" proclamation, we definite to try a little experiment: We compiled the late seven years' worth of our 100 Go-to-meeting Products of the Class lists, pulled out the meridian 10 products elite annually, and set them side by side of meat for comparing. (To go the experiment yourself, moderate out the "PCWorld 10 Best Products of the Year: 2005-2011" chart below.)

As information technology turns impossible, Jobs had a point–equal to a point. As long atomic number 3 people have processor- and keyboard-qualifier computing tasks to execute, good ol' laptops and desktops aren't going anywhere. But after sifting through our yearly "First of" lists, we saw unmistakably that, as "personal computer science" has become more mainstream and more entertainment-directed, the devices used for "personal computing" have strayed farther and farther away from tralatitious PCs.

The unstable shift from time-honored PCs to other computing devices isn't the single major change we've witnessed in the world of personal technical school over the past few days. Another key development is a spectacular change in the nature of software, services, and peripheral hardware, brought on past the popularity of small, less-powerful gadgets such as phones and tablets. As a result, your gross computer science go through today relies on fundamentally different devices and technologies than it did true a few years ago.

Consider 2005, which you no doubt remember as the yr Everybody Loves Raymond ended its keep going CBS. In conventional terms, it doesn't seem that retentive ago; yet if you expression at some of the top 10 products on our list that yr, they seem stylish at Charles Herbert Best and archaic at rack up.

You may disagree with some of the special items we picked for our 100 Best lists from class to twelvemonth, but looking the lists as a whole provides an interesting snapshot of which products made an impact during that time. Here are the top 10 products on our "Best of" lists over the past seven old age:

PCWorld 10 Best Products of the Year, 2005–2011

	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011
1	Mozilla Firefox	Intel Core Duo (CPU)	Google Apps Premier Edition	Hulu	The App Store	Google Android 2.2 Froyo	Verizon LTE
2	Google Gmail	AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core (CPU)	Intel Core 2 Brace	Apple iPhone	Google Voice	Apple iPad	MacBook Airwave
3	Apple Mac OS X 10.4 Panthera tigris	Craigslist	Nintendo Wii	Facebook	Intel X25-M SSD (160GB)	Amazon Kindle (3rd Generation)	Intel Sandy Span
4	Belkin Wireless Pre-N Router	Apple iPod Nano	Verizon FiOS	Windows XP	Nikon D300S	Netflix	Samsung Beetleweed S2
5	Dell UltraSharp 2405 FPW	Seagate 160GB Portable	RIM BlackBerry 8800	Lenovo ThinkPad X300	Twitter	Samsung Galaxy Tab	Microsoft Kinect
6	Alienware Aurora 5500	Google Earth	Parallels Desktop	Flock	Dell Latitude Z600	Sony Alpha NEX-5	Orchard apple tree iPad 2
7	Seagate USB 2.0 Sack Drive	Adobe Premiere Elements 2	Trailblazer Elect 1080p PRO-FHD1	Eye-Fi	Microsoft Bing	HP Envy 14 Beats Edition	Windows Phone 7 Mango
8	Skype	Canyon EOS 30D	Infrant Technologies ReadyNAS NV	Casio Exilim Pro EX-F1	Canyon PowerShot SX200 IS	Samsung Epos 4G	HP ePrint
9	Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT	YouTube	Apple Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger	Harmonix Rock Band	Beatles Rock Band	Instapaper	Sony Alpha SLT-A77
10	PalmOne Treo 650	Apple Boot Pack	Adobe brick Premiere Elements 3	Wikipedia	Samsung LN46B750U	Microsoft Security Essentials	Samsung Series 9

If you give out those lists down aside product type, they look like this:

PCWorld 10 Best Products of the Twelvemonth, past Type, 2005–2011

	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011
1	Web browser for PCs	CPU for PCs	Cloud office rooms for PCs	Video-streaming internet site	Store for rangy apps	Mobile in operation scheme	High-speed alveolate service
2	Cloud netmail service	CPU for PCs	CPU for PCs	Smartphone	Mobile app	Tablet	Ultraportable laptop
3	PC OS	Web site	Gaming console	Elite-networking site	Solid-state drive	E-reader	CPU for PCs
4	Wisconsin-Fi router	MP3 player	Fiberoptic broadband	PC operating system	Member SLR television camera	Moving video service	Smartphone
5	Monitor	Portable unmerciful drive	Smartphone	Ultraportable laptop	Social networking site	Tablet	Motion plot controller
6	Desktop PC	Background mapping software	OS virtualization for PCs	Browser with amalgamated social networking	Ultraportable laptop	Compact interchangeable-lens photographic camera	Lozenge
7	Portable insensitive beat back	Video-redaction software for PCs	Plasma High-definition television	SD card with radiocommunication capabilities	Research railway locomotive	All-purpose laptop with headphones	Mobile operative system
8	IP telephony software for PCs	Integer SLR camera	Network-sessile warehousing	High-speed camera	Scoop megazoom camera	4G smartphone	Mobile cloud printing
9	Digital SLR camera	Video-cyclosis site	PC OS	Video game	Computer game	Mobile app	High-speed photographic camera
10	Personal organizer/telephone	Dual-charge OS app for PCs	Video-editing software for PCs	Crowd-sourced encyclopedia	LCD HDTV	Free antivirus suite	Ultraportable laptop

In examining those annual lists face-by-side of meat, you can see the evolution of personal computing happening right in front of you. Few far-famed trends pop out.

1. 2008 changed a lot of things: That's the year the iPhone roared onto our 100 Best Products list. Before 2008, the items that reached the superlative 10 each year were for the most part PC-based hardware, components, software, and peripherals. Subsequently 2008, motorized apps, mobile operational systems, and Net services that could be lam on some device became far more prominent. Even traditional laptops are decent much like smartphones and tablets, with an accent on ultraslim designs, unimportant apps instead of beefy software package packages, and skin senses-settled stimulus from either the trackpad or the screen itself.

2. The fog is replacement both hardware and computer software: The corrupt-based Google Apps bureau suite topped our list in 2007, an earlier signal of the huge shift that was about to occur. Since and then, we've seen computing devices become less dedicated to delivering gossamer processing power and more focused happening providing mobile, browser- or app-based access to primary applications and data. This has revolutionized the set about to tasks historically joint not just with desktop software, but besides with components and peripherals. They've totally been outsourced to the cloud in one manner or another, leastways for casual users.

Years ago, you needed a massive hard driveway to store your music and video files; now you can current everything operating room memory boar/synchronize it online. Instead of installing office suites, email clients, and media-redaction tools on your system, you can do a lot of that work with Web-based services. You may still need a printer, but now you tail end print documents like a shot from a mobile device. Ah, but what about the widespread popularity of "installed" mobile apps? In some slipway, mobile apps actually reinforce the argument that computing is migrating online: Many apps that need to be "installed" on your phone or tablet are plainly fancy front-ends for Web-based services, tailored for touchscreens and maneuverable users. A fate of "apps" are, as a matter of fact, unnecessary; you can bash very much of the same things in a browser.

3. Data speeds are the freshly processor speeds, and 4G is the new Wi-Fi: In 2006, the a la mode dual-core processors from Intel and AMD were numbers 1 and 2 on our Best Products list. This year, a CPU finishes unreal the whirligig of our list, merely Verizon's 4G LTE religious service rules the roost. As the popularity of cloud-settled services and moving media continues to rise, having a speedy, robust wireless connection is arguably more than important than having a powerful CPU. Because much of the heavy data processing takes place connected the host side of the equation, speech of data at the fastest speeds possible is what makes the difference for many airborne users. And since fast cellular networks aren't tied to locational access points as Wisconsin-Fi is, they're bound to become regular Thomas More popular in the forthcoming.

4. Keyboard-and-mouse input may get on the way of life out: Over the past seven years, a amoun of "disjunctive" input technologies have popped up in our annual top 10s–starting with the touchscreen-and-style-equipped PalmOne Treo 650 in 2005. In 2007, Nintendo's motion-dominated Wii made the list; and in 2008, Malus pumila's iPhone brought a multitouch, stylus-free interface to the masses (along with Wii-alike accelerometers). Get's not forget the innovative faux-instrument controllers at the kernel of Harmonix's Rock Band and Beatles Rock Band in 2008 and 2009, severally. And this yr, Microsoft's comptroller-free Kinect arrangement made the list, along with a development add up of touchscreen devices. It will be interesting to assure whether Apple's voice-driven "intelligent assistant" Siri catches on with the masses in the coming year.

5. Apple has undergone a remarkable evolution: Though Orchard apple tree has consistently made a strong showing in our top 10 lists in recent years, IT has done thusly on the backs of radically divergent innovations. No company's products wealthy person showcased the sea change from base computing to mobility better. In 2005, when Mac Bone X Tiger cracked the top 3, the MacBook line didn't survive, nor did the iPhone. Since 2008, the company's scheme has shifted to mobile, "not-Microcomputer" devices, influencing the commercialise significantly. First, the iPhone changed the nature of phones. Next, the App Salt away, which topped our graph in 2009, redefined what everyone expected of maneuverable software. In 2010, the first-generation iPad provided the first significant alternative to casual laptop computing. This class, both the iPad 2 and the thin-but-powerful MacBook Air successful our list, equally they both hardening the bar for a new wave of tablets and ultraportable laptops.

Require to see PCWorld's Best Products of the Class lists for 2005 through 2011 in their entirety and do your own analytic thinking? Hera they are: