Choosing the most important technological product of the last 30 years is not an easy task: does the iPhone deserve that award? The Nintendo Switch? The Apple Vision Pro? Well, maybe it won’t be the last. But that’s the task T3 set for its 30th anniversary awards, and after much deliberation, it crowned Apple’s iPod the ultimate winner.
The iPod, released in 2001, was considered the biggest product in T3’s life, reflecting its popularity, its longevity and, ultimately, its revolutionary nature.
“The iPod was more than just a product: it was a revolution in the entire music industry,” says Mat Gallagher, editor-in-chief of T3.
“What started with 1,000 songs in your pocket introduced the world to iTunes and paying for digital music. Although the iPhone ultimately made the iPod redundant, without the iPod the iPhone would not have existed.”
T3, which launched in 1996 and is owned by TechRadar’s Future publisher, also honored two giants of the past 30 years with special anniversary awards: Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, was named British Icon, while outgoing Apple CEO Tim Cook was declared Person of the Year.
The awards cover 84 categories in total, from cooking technology to transportation and from smartphones to smart watches. The prestigious Product of the Year went to the Adidas Adizero Adios Pro Evo 3, while Garmin took the Brand of the Year award and the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra took home the Readers’ Choice award.
Meanwhile, Lego Smart Play won the Technology Innovation Award and the Suri 2.0 electric toothbrush took the Sustainability Award. There were also four winners of the Design Awards, which were voted on by a panel of industry editors, including TechRadar global editor-in-chief Marc McLaren; Nothing Headphone (1) and Dyson PencilVac were among those receiving honors there.
You can check out all 84 winners in T3 now, while the magazine’s anniversary issue is on sale now.
