Rank the best Apple products from the last 50 years | The Vergethe vergeapple 50Comments DrawerCommentsLoading commentsGetting the conversation ready...Rank Your Top 50Help us pick the best Apple products of the last 50 years! Just choose which of the two randomly paired options you prefer.See resultsHow this worksHow this worksFor any one person, ranking 50 items can be a long and tedious process. For a community, however, it's markedly easier. Rather than have each user submit a full list, we can break down the rankings into bite-size components, then recombine them once we have enough votes. Here, we're using a modified ELO algorithm to do just that. With ELO, each item has a starting score, which then modified in every paired matchup. The change in points is based on the score of the other item in the pairing; beating the top ranked item will come with a higher reward than beating the lowest, and the same in reverse applies to the penalties for losing. (ELO was originally developed for chess, which has more robust victory conditions than 'user preference,' so we've tweaked the standard version to dampen the effects of major upsets.)All of which means that every time you make a choice between any two of the items on our Apple Top 50 list, you're making a contribution to the overall community rankings. Thanks!CREDITSDesign: Kristen RadtkeEngineer: Graham MacAreeEditors: Nilay Patel, David Pierce, Meredith HaggertyConcept: Victoria Barrios, Travis LarchukCopy edit: Kallie Plagge

The premise of this exercise, a community-driven ranking of Apple’s products over the past fifty years, relies on a sophisticated methodology—a modified ELO algorithm—designed to efficiently capture the collective preferences of a large user base. This approach leverages pairwise comparisons, acknowledging the inherent difficulty in soliciting and synthesizing individual opinions into a comprehensive ranking. The core of the system rests on the ELO rating system, originally conceived for chess, adapted for this task by adjusting its parameters to account for the less definitive nature of user preference. The algorithm’s dynamic scoring system, where wins and losses translate into points modifications, seeks to establish a relative hierarchy of Apple products based on aggregated votes. This method prioritizes a gradual, data-driven process over a single, potentially biased opinion. The collaborative nature of the process—where each user’s decision contributes to the overall ranking—is carefully managed through the ELO system, ensuring relative stability and representing a robust approximation of the community’s sentiment. The implementation details, overseen by a team of designers, engineers, editors, and concept developers along with experienced copy editors, further refine the ranking process to ensure accuracy and usability, demonstrating a structured and thoughtful approach to generating a nuanced product hierarchy.