It's a typical pattern in the high-tech world: A start-up becomes wildly successful based on great technology, then proceeds to ease out the geeks who created that tech and bring in adult supervision. Often it works, but it almost killed Apple. Many of Apple's least successful products -- the Macintosh Portable, the Pippin, the Newton MessagePad, and the invasion of the Mac clones, to name but a few -- occurred during this dark post/pre-Jobsian period. It's a miracle the company survived.

No, not that wheel (though frankly, we wouldn't be surprised if Apple claimed a patent on it). We're talking about the iPod click wheel. While by itself not the world's most earth-shattering innovation, the click wheel ultimately led to the tapping/swiping touchscreen interface beloved by the iPhone faithful, says Austin O'Malley, executive vice president for R&D at CAD software maker .

"The iPod Classic's click wheel allowed users to seamlessly filter thousands of songs with a few clicks," he says. "Although it did not make the jump to Apple's iPhone, the click wheel paved the way for users to become accustomed to convenience and depth at their fingertips."