I don't think the last 20 years were that much interesting. The 15 years before that? Certainly.
For comparison: https://www.amazon.com/Keep-Simple-Early-Design-Years/dp/389...
The iPad "created" (again, technically just brought to prominence) the tablet form factor. The iPod fundamentally changed music forever, the shitty Apple earbuds are iconic in and of themselves, and barely anyone even purchases those.
Furthermore, I contend that Apple changed design as a whole forever. It takes high end boutique design and without fail sets a new bar across every industry they set foot in. Great design has become a prerequisite for consumer products. On the one hand this trivializes design in that few of the people demanding Apple-tier design understand the amount of work it takes, but on the other hand it means companies can look at Apple's astronomical margins and perhaps justify stronger investment in design.
The entire history of Apple is pretty fascinating, but from a design perspective alone (i.e. not necessarily a technical perspective) I think the last 15 years or so contain the highest density of notable strides forward.
A good couple years before the iPhone appeared, I used a Sony Ericsson P-800. Most of the time, I used it without the cover and used the screen or voice to dial. It was mostly a screen, not unlike a Palm before it.
What the iPhone brought was the sleek and fluid interface and the solid build and the multi-touch gestures (which, TBH, were not possible with the tech available in 2002, when the P-800 was launched). It's remarkable, of course, because it was obvious when we saw it, but not before.
The iPad applied the same "first that doesn't suck" logic to the tablet format. It wasn't the first tablet, not by a light-year. BTW, on its own, the Newton's OS is very interesting. The iPad was simply the one built after the tech allowed it not to suck.
Apple has achieved great things in design, but visit any museum with a decent industrial design collection and you'll discover the universe didn't start with the Second Coming of Steve Jobs.
That is the great design achievement of Apple.
I agree That thanks to Apple now we expect beautiful electronics, and even the most oblivious to Apple person benefits from it. It took a very very long time for the industry to take note and pick up the pace. Now that it kind of did, I think people disregard Apple as the originator. But worse than that is seeing Apple blowing its own horn, not with this book which is kind of cool to buy (even if strange coming from them) but from their recent marketing and celebratory moves.
I expect that since I was a kid. I blame my mom, who got us a beautiful, now classic, Braun Atelier TV set (adapted to PAL-M) through a friend in the German consulate (importing stuff was problematic in Brazil by the late 70's).
How many people own something by Apple?
No one is pretending that good design didn't exist pre-Apple. It's that good design wasn't a dominant force in standard mass consumer markets.
In fact I checked out the comments for this article specifically because the book doesn't appeal to me either, and I was curious if I was the only one who felt that way.