Steve Jobs’ most influential Apple products are the iPhone, Macintosh, iPod, Apple II, iMac and iPad—but their influence came in different forms. The iPhone reshaped a handheld device into a broad computing platform; Macintosh helped popularize mouse-driven graphical computing; and the iPod joined a music player to software and a store. This ranking weighs category change, influence on later products and industries, access for mainstream users, and the staying power of each idea. It is an editorial comparison, not a measured scorecard.
How this ranking measures lasting impact
Influence is not the same as sales, launch-day success, or a claim that one person designed a product alone. The products below are ranked by how substantially they changed expectations in their category, shaped later Apple products or adjacent industries, brought a capability to ordinary users, and left ideas that endured. The evidence does not provide one consistent numerical measure for all six, so the exact order—especially among the later entries—is a judgment.
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Apple products were team achievements. The Steve Jobs Archive quotes Jobs: “It is always a team of people, and the chemistry between that team of people, that makes great results.” Jobs’s role is best understood as cofounder, product leader and presenter, not sole engineer.
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Steve Jobs’ most influential Apple products, ranked
1. iPhone (2007): a phone became a broad computing platform
At its 2007 introduction, Jobs described the iPhone as “a widescreen iPod with touch controls, a revolutionary mobile phone and a breakthrough internet communications device.” That combination is the reason it ranks first: the device brought communication, internet access, media and software together in one handheld product, then grew into a platform for services and applications. Apple’s later account identifies the iPhone platform as inspiration for products including iPad. Apple’s tenth-anniversary retrospective reported more than one billion iPhones sold by 2017.
#1 Best Overall
Scale continued: the Associated Press reported more than three billion iPhones sold since launch in its 2026 anniversary account, and said the iPhone represented more than half of Apple’s annual revenue in that report’s context. Those figures describe the periods reported, not a permanent revenue share. The iPhone’s rank rests on both its reach and the breadth of categories it brought together. The AP’s 2026 history provides that dated context.
2. Macintosh (1984): popularized a new direction for personal computing
The Macintosh helped move personal computing toward mouse-driven icons, windows and menus. Smithsonian curator David K. Allison called it the most significant Apple artifact in the museum’s collection and said it “really introduced the graphic-user interface to the world.” That is a statement about popularization and influence—not a claim that Apple invented graphical user interfaces. The original Macintosh was expensive and its launch was not an unqualified commercial triumph; its long-term importance is clearer in the direction it helped establish.
Jobs later recalled the launch with the conviction that “Every computer is going to work this way.” That is his retrospective view, rather than independent proof of the Macintosh’s priority. Smithsonian Magazine’s interview with Allison offers the curator’s assessment and historical context.
3. iPod and iTunes (2001 onward): a connected music experience
The iPod made digital music portable, but its influence was not just the hardware. Apple paired the player with iTunes and the iTunes Music Store, linking a device, software and a music storefront. Macworld describes the iPod as a major Apple growth product until the iPhone arrived and identifies that integrated approach as a pattern carried into later Apple products. MP3 players and online music already existed; Apple’s contribution was to make the connected experience especially coherent and accessible. Macworld’s retrospective discusses that product lineage.
4. Apple II (1977): the commercial foundation
The Apple II established Apple as a personal-computing company before the Macintosh. Smithsonian identifies it as Apple’s first big seller and notes its association with early spreadsheet use; the Associated Press calls its 1977 release the company’s first smash success. The AP’s 2026 historical account lists its release price as $1,298—a nominal historical price, not an inflation-adjusted equivalent.
Attribution matters here: broader histories identify Steve Wozniak as the Apple II’s principal designer. Jobs helped lead and present Apple’s products, but should not be credited as its sole engineer. Smithsonian’s interview with Allison and the AP’s anniversary history document its commercial significance.
5. iMac (1998): a visible reset for Apple’s consumer identity
After Jobs returned to Apple, the iMac became a prominent sign of a more deliberate consumer-product era. Apple’s design retrospective begins its photo history with the 1998 iMac, while the Steve Jobs Archive places it among the breakthroughs of Jobs’s second tenure. Its influence is less clearly a category-wide shift than that of the iPhone or Macintosh, but it helped make Apple’s renewed focus on distinctive consumer products visible. The Steve Jobs Archive’s book describes the return-era sequence, and Apple’s design-book announcement dates the iMac’s place in its design history.
6. iPad (2010): a mainstream tablet in Apple’s product lineage
The iPad extended the touch-based platform Apple had developed with iPhone into a larger-screen device. Apple’s iPhone retrospective explicitly describes iPhone as inspiration for products such as iPad, and the Jobs Archive lists iPad among the breakthroughs of Jobs’s second tenure. Its lower position reflects the available comparison: the sources establish its significance and lineage, but do not provide a common measure to weigh its lasting influence against the iPhone, Macintosh or iPod.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Important products beyond the six
Lisa: influential ideas, difficult economics
Lisa merits a mention because it was a costly commercial failure whose ideas were later made more cost-effective in Macintosh. That relationship makes it historically relevant without requiring it to outrank the products with broader, more durable impact. Smithsonian’s curator interview discusses Lisa alongside Macintosh and other Apple products: Smithsonian Magazine.
Mac OS X: foundational software, not a hardware entry
Mac OS X belongs in a discussion of Jobs-era influence even though this ranking focuses on hardware products. Macworld notes that Apple’s purchase of NeXT brought Jobs back and laid groundwork for the Mac’s transformation; the operating-system lineage later reached iPhone. It is a foundational thread in Apple’s product history rather than a like-for-like hardware entry. Macworld’s retrospective covers that lineage.
Why the iPhone ranks first
The iPhone did not simply improve one product category. It joined the phone, portable media player and internet device in one product, and its platform informed later Apple products. Apple reported more than one billion units sold by 2017; the AP reported more than three billion cumulative sales in 2026. That combination of reach, category-spanning function and continuing influence makes it the strongest choice for Jobs-era Apple’s most influential product.
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