Steve Jobs has an uncanny sense for imagining products that carry a powerful and unique emotional payload by tapping into whimsy, nostalgia, even ego. self storage tampa . Here, the five Apple products that most successfully harness our emotions–and how they do it. Agree? Disagree? Click over to the accompanying blog and tell us.

Early Mac status icons

The 1984 Mac said, “I have feelings. Like you.”

The original Mac didn’t display flashing lights or cryptic boot messages on startup. It made a happy face. If you didn’t have the necessary floppy installed, it displayed a floppy disk icon with a question mark: a simple quizzical character that equaled a shoulder shrug. We got it.

The 1984 Mac–more than the Apple II, IBM PC, or any other product of the day–was a “he” and not an “it.” Because people don’t tend to bond with unfeeling, inanimate things. For that, we require an emotional indicator, even if just a smile or a frown. Windows Tablet . Apple got that.

Photo by MacWorld

Caption by Rafe Needleman