Apple’s most important contribution over the past 50 years isn’t what you expect

Wednesday, April 1, marks 50 years since Apple was founded. Over the next week, you’ll no doubt see countless articles examining the company’s influence, with many likely focusing on which single Apple product had the most consequential impact on the tech industry and society as a whole. To be sure, there are myriad options to choose from, most notably, the original Macintosh, the iMac, the iPod, and the iPhone. Yet to me, Apple’s most important contribution over the past fifty years isn’t a physical product. Rather, it’s a policy—one asserting that privacy is a fundamental human right, and, to protect that right, products must be designed with privacy in mind. It’s a policy that is more important today than ever. Apple makes a seismic shift Whether you realize it or not, you are the most important product sold by many of the largest companies in existence. Sure, Google might sell ads, but those ads are only valuable to businesses because of the amount of data that the search giant has