The 10 most important tech trends of the decade

From Tesla to Alexa to iPad to Airbnb, these were tech's

biggest leaps forward during the 2010s.

This story is part of The 2010s: A Decade in Review a series on the memes, people,
products, movies and so much more, that have influenced the 2010s

When I hustled out of CNET headquarters in San Francisco on May 26, 2010, and
slipped into a rental car with two of my co-workers to head to a meeting across the Bay,
one of them slipped me a copy of The Wall Street Journal and pointed to a headline that
announced Apple had passed Microsoft to become the world's most valuable tech
company

"What do you think of that?" she said.

"Unreal," I responded, shaking my head.

Just over a decade earlier, Apple had nearly been on its deathbed and needed a $150
million investment from Microsoft simply to stay alive. But then the iPhone arrived in
2007, and Apple rewrote the playbook on the mobile revolution. In the years that
followed, more new Apple products would cascade on the success of the iPhone. And
phones from Apple, and those powered by Android, would spread across the planet,
embedding themselves deeper into our lives than we could imagine.

That's why when making our list of the most important technology products and trends
of the 2010s, all of them were connected to the mobile revolution -- either directly or
indirectly -- and three of them intersected with Apple and the iPhone.

1. 4G LTE put the world in our pocket

When the HTC Thunderbolt became my corporate phone in March 2011, it was the biggest leap
forward I've ever experienced from one generation of phones to the next. And while the
Thunderbolt hardware was decent enough, its status as the first broadly available LTE phone in
the US was what made it special. (Sprint claimed it had the first 4G phone with the HTC Evo
4G in 2010, but it used the slower WiMax technology.) The way the Thunderbolt loaded web
pages, played videos, downloaded podcasts and attached photos to messages was shockingly fast
It felt like the way a smartphone was always meant to work. It soon unlocked a slew of new
capabilities, from mobile streaming to hotspot tethering to real-time apps (like Uber, which was
just getting started) -- all of which had very limited experiences on 3G phones. The 4G
experience we first saw on the Thunderbolt led the smartphone to become central to our
everyday lives throughout the decade. And it's why there's so much enthusiasm about how the
next leap forward with 5G is going to shape the decade ahead. While it's been massively
overhyped and the current 5G networks are still in their infancy, think about this: 4G was a 5x
improvement in speed and latency over 3G, while 5G is a 10x to 100x improvement in speed and
latency over standard 4G. The next decade could be pretty good.

2. iPads, Chromebooks and the new PC era

After almost a decade of denying that Apple was working on a tablet computer, Steve
Jobs strode on stage in January 2010 and announced the iPad. He boasted it would
define "an entirely new category of devices that will connect users with their apps and
content in a much more intimate, intuitive and fun way than ever before." At the time,
CNET (and lots of others) asked if an iPad should even be considered a computer.
Consumers had the final word on that, as devices like iPads and Google
Chromebooks proved to be good enough for kids, students, parents, seniors and many
others to choose as their main computer. And in some parts of the world, smartphones
themselves became the first and only computers for many people. While workers and
power users stuck to their traditional keyboard-centric computers, even many of those
machines were transformed by the apps and touchscreens of phones and tablets. As
we reach the end of the decade, our computers take on more and more of the
characteristics of our mobile devices each year.
3. Ninja revolutionaries: Cloud, data and AI

There's one trend powering all of the others on this list: the explosion of new behind-the-
scenes technologies -- cloud computing, big data and artificial intelligence. These three
enable so many of the amazing new capabilities in our devices, from digital assistants to
low-light photography to backing up our photos so we can still access them after we
break or lose a phone. These technologies appear in consumer products like Dropbox,
Apple iCloud, Microsoft OneDrive, Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant. But more often
than not, they chug along in quiet data centers in remote places where electricity is
cheaper and that are out of the path of natural disasters. But without these massive
advances over the past decade, our devices would be a lot less smart and far less fun.
And it's also notable that after Apple stole its thunder in devices, Microsoft transformed
itself into a cloud company and eventually retook the crown of the world's most valuable
tech company.

4. Cord cutting changes TV forever

When we think of "cutting the cord’’ from cable TV, the first thing that comes to mind is
wanting to save money, getting away from the $100 cable subscriptions that force us to
pay for a lot of extra channels we don't watch. And while that's often the primary
motivator, cord-cutting was also driven by people wanting to watch video in new ways.
As broadband got faster and devices got better screens, more of us watched video on
phones and tablets. As TVs got smarter and streaming boxes like Roku, Fire TV and
Apple TV delivered better ways to access programming and select shows to watch, we
didn't even need those outdated cable boxes. And as Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, HBO and
others came out with streaming apps that gave us whole content libraries at our
fingertips, the old model of channel surfing or even recording shows on a DVR became
a lot less appealing.

5. The 'quantified self' uses tech to fight tech

The collateral damage of the digital age is that we're spending a lot more time sitting still
and looking at screens -- and it can have terrible effects on our health. As people have
become more aware of the risks this poses, it's created demand for tech solutions to
help monitor and manage the three pillars of health: exercise, diet and sleep. There are
fitness trackers like Apple Watch and Fitbit. There are meal trackers and calorie
counters like MyFitnessPal and Lose It. And there are sleep trackers like the
SleepWatch app and premium SleepNumber beds. And there are tons of other devices,
apps and services that will help quantify our health with the goal of getting us to move
more, eat better and make sure we're sleeping well. Of course, the jury is still out on
whether tech will be the answer to fight the ill effects of too much tech.

6. Tesla Autopilot and the big upgrade

Tesla deserves a spot here despite selling, by far, the smallest number of products of
any company on this list. Despite its modest sales, the carmaker pushed forward the
development of all-electric vehicles and self-driving cars more than any of the world's
giant automakers -- and propelled virtually all of them to redouble their own efforts on
both fronts. In October 2015, Tesla turned its Model S vehicles into self-driving cars with
a $2,500 "Autopilot" upgrade that the cars downloaded over the air in one of the world's
most significant software updates and in-app purchases of all time. That's just one
example of how Tesla ran circles around the competition and acted more like a tech
company than a car company. Nevertheless, Autopilot also faced controversy over
several fatal accidents when users relied on it too heavily and it failed to protect them or
those around them.

7. Apple Watch and the wearables explosion

In April 2015 when Apple launched its first wearable device, the Apple Watch, it made
us think of a Dick Tracy-style computer on our wrists. It turned out to be just a slightly
smarter Fitbit. But that was enough to make it the best-selling watch in the world within
two years. Fitbit, Garmin and others also continue to make popular fitness-tracking
devices to help us boost our daily activity by meeting goals for steps, miles and other
measurements that turn exercise into a game. These wearable devices also aimed at
giving us a more unobtrusive way to check notifications, since most of us now look at
our phones over 50 times a day Another wearable device that had similar ideas in mind
was Google Glass, which arrived in 2013. It was ahead of its time and it quickly flamed
out, but look for Google Glass-like augmented reality glasses to be one of the biggest
trends of the 2020s. In addition to Google, facebook and Apple are expected to
release their own AR glasses in the next few years.

8. Amazon Echo and the Alexa movement

Unlike the scorn and derision that initially greeted AirPods, the first speaker in 2014 was
mostly met with shrugs and head scratches. It was a mediocre Bluetooth speaker in the
shape of a Pringles can that could answer a few rudimentary voice commands. But
some funny things happened. The device got smaller and cheaper. Developers bought
into creating "skills" to expand what it could do. And it turned out that people liked using
their voice to set timers in the kitchen, to play music and to check the weather, news
and sports. Asking Alexa (the name Amazon gave to its voice assistant) turned into a
cultural phenomenon. Google and Apple have been racing to catch up to Alexa ever
since. Amazon has since expanded Alexa's capabilities into lots of other devices, and
that continues to make privacy concerns a bigger part of the Alexa story

9. Airpods and the death of the headphone jack

One of the most controversial "innovations" of the decade was the decision by Apple in
2016 to remove the headphone jack from the iPhone 7. (Other smartphone makers
subsequently did the same thing on their flagship phones.) Apple's motivation was to
move the world to wireless earbuds, such as its $159 AirPods. When they first launched
in 2016, the AirPods looked incredibly awkward and were the object of heaps of scorn.
But the look eventually caught on, and Apple is on pace to sell 50 million sets of
AirPods in 2019, making it the undisputed leader in a now crowded market of excellent
wireless earbuds

10. Uber, Lyft and Airbnb

Whatever you do, don't call it "the sharing economy." It was never that altruistic. But
services such as Uber and Lyft and Airbnb made getting a ride and finding a place to
stay easier and cheaper than ever. The power of the smartphone app was rarely more
apparent than with these companies -- and their counterparts around the world like DiDi
in China and Grab in southeast Asia. By the end of the decade, Airbnb had more room
listings than all of the available rooms of the world's top five hotel chains combined,
and Uber and Lyft were giving 65% more rides than were taxis in New York City. The
success of Uber and Airbnb didn't come without controversy -- Uber for endangering
passengers and Airbnb for tone-deaf advertising, for example. That was also a recurring
part of their story.
 The top 10 tech trends of 2010
By; Doug Gross

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
 The iPad and other tablet computers were big tech news in 2010
 Facebook continued its rise to Web dominance, hitting 500 million accounts
 Saga of iPhone 4, rise of app stores and fears about online privacy also made headlines

The iPad and the rise of the tablets

When the new yea dawned, almost no one in the world knew what an iPad was.
Outside of the techno-geek community, few had even heard of tablet computers -- the
hybrid, missing link between smartphones and laptops.
Then in late January, that all changed. With the unveiling of Apple's much-anticipated tablet
computer, Apple didn't invent tablet computing. But the gang from Cupertino, California,
certainly pushed it into the mainstream.
Now, 13 million or so sales later, the Apple gadget is at the top of the list of gadgets that
children 6 to 12 want to see under the tree this year, according to Nielsen research.
And it's starting to get some company.
In a field of tablets running Google's Android operating system, the Samsung Galaxy has
emerged as the iPad's chief rival. Early this month, Samsung said that the tab had sold 1
million units since its launch in October.
And Research In Motion, the makers of BlackBerry, plan to join the battle early next year
with the Playbook, which they're already touting as being more efficient than the iPad.
Tablets don't have the computing heft of slightly larger laptops or the pocket-size
storage of a smartphone. But their video, gaming, Web-surfing and media-consumption
abilities are capturing a big audience and it's a safe bet they're here to stay.

We are Facebook; resistance is futile

 A major Hollywood mov A Time magazine "Person of the Year" nod for its CEO. And a
half-billion users, more or less
Oh yeah ... and it passed Google to become the.
If Facebook was already a force of internet nature on New Year's Day, it became a
phenomenon unmatched in Web history in 2010.
The rise of Facebook was the subject of Aaron Sorkin's "The Social Network," which
has grossed more than $90 million. It also was a key element of the lesser-known, but
arguably more intriguing, "Catfish."
Some tech bloggers predicted the unflinching and often-fictionalized movie would hurt
founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg's reputation. Instead, he seems to have been
catapulted to an even higher level of celebrity.
Of course the billions of dollars he's donating to charity didn't hurt. In September,
Zuckerberg -- who, at 26, has an estimated net worth of $6.9 billion -- pledged $100
million to Newark, New Jersey, schools. Then he trumped that this month with a pledge
to donate more than half his wealth to charities during, or after, his lifetime.
But personalities aside, the site itself continued to integrate itself into everyday life. E-
mail continued to wane because of Facebook messaging, which included a new
ramped-up system. And the way we relate to each other has probably been changed
forever. (Hey, when a pastor is telling his entire congregation to quit you, you know you've
arrived.)

Check in, turn on, go out

In 2009, the concept of mobile check-in apps was just emerging. In 2010, it took off.
Growing with the rising number of smartphones, social apps such as Foursquare and
Gowalla creeped out of the tiny cloister of the tech elite and into the mainstream

Foursquare, which has emerged as the leader in the field, saw dramatic growth in 2010.
In March, Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley celebrated the app hitting the half-million-user
mark.
This month, it surpassed 5 million.
Networking giant Facebook liked what it saw. In August, they launched Facebook Places, a
similar check-in feature.
The concept of checking in at bars, restaurants and other spots appeals mainly to a
young, social crowd, and, in the minds of some, raises privacy concerns.
But a spate of apps for homebodies followed in 2010. Mobile apps such as GetGlue, Miso
and Philo let users check in to TV shows, movies, books and other entertainment,
earning virtual and sometimes real-word rewards along the way.
Other apps offer similar rewards for visiting websites, meaning users don't have to leave
their desks to play.
According to Crowley, one of the goals of such apps is to turn the whole world into a
game. Most Web users haven't signed on yet, but the number of those who have keeps
on growing.

Look, Ma! No hands!

The way we play video games began what could be a seismic shift in 2010. And there
were no paddles or joysticks involved.
Microsoft's Kinect system for the Xbox 360 took the greatest leap forward. Rolled out at
the E3 video-game expo in June, the Kinect is totally hands-free, using a camera to read
the player's movements and incorporate them in the game.

From tickling tiger cubs to controlling Harry Potter, Kinect gets gamers off the sofa and
immersing themselves in their game worlds. Apparently, it's catching on.
The Kinect system sold 2.5 million units in its first month on shelves and is on pace to sell
5 million by the end of the holiday season, Microsoft said.
Not to be outdone, Sony rolled out its Move system for the PlayStation 3.
Utilizing remote controllers that look a bit like glowing ice-cream cones, Move isn't quite
hands-free, but boasts what developers say is superior motion-sensing.
And then there's Nintendo. The pioneers of motion-based gaming stood pat on the
hardware this year, but pressed its early advantage by rolling out more complex, fully-
imagined games such as "Metroid: Other M," "Disney: Epic Mickey" and "GoldenEye
007."

Watching the Web on TV

Tech-savvy couch potatoes have been rigging their networks to push Web content onto
their televisions for a while.
But in 2010, some of the biggest names in technology, as well as some savvy upstarts,
got into the Web TV game in a big way.
At the front of the pack Google and Apple
Apple TV was launched in 2007, but it mostly languished until it got a reboot and a
major price cut in September. In addition to Netflix integration, the system lets users buy
TV shows for 99 cents each.
Google has promised a similar system -- optimizing Web sites for TV and striking deals with
the likes of HBO, Pandora and Netflix. Google TV has hit some snags. Several major
networks aren't playing along, and The New York Times recently reported that it needs
more time than expected to work on software.
Meanwhile, companies such as Roku and Boxee are offering similar devices,
suggesting that Web TV, in one form or anothe, is here to stay.

The saga of the iPhone 4

Oh, iPhone 4. Rarely has the launch of a gadget provided more suspense or
entertainment than Apple's June unveiling of the latest in its popular smartphone line.
First things first.The phone has been a hit, selling millions of units.
But not without some drama

Firs, there was the riveting saga of the beer-hall iPhone. After an Apple employee
reportedly left a prototype, disguised as an iPhone 3GS, at a California beer garden in
April, someone snagged it.

The iPhone 4 was unveiled in June, but there were some complaints about its reception strength.

Then, tech blog Gizmodo paid $5,000 to get its hands on it and published an article and
video under the headline, "This is Apple's new iPhone."
Police raids, bitter recriminations and the phone's eventual return followed. And that
was all before the thing was even released.
Perhaps the most unkin cut came when Consumer Reports, which declined to
recommend the phone because of the reception, suggested slapping a piece of duct
tape onto the sleek and shiny piece of tech.
Apple, with CEO Steve Jobs as point person, denied there was a major problem with
the reception, even during a subsequent news conference where they offered free
cases to cover up the spot where a "death grip" caused the phone's signal to weaken.
Over time and a handful of software updates, the complaints faded and talk of the
iPhone 4 turned to features such as its FaceTime video chat, high-resolution screen and
ultrathin design.
But it was a wild ride.

Escalation of the smartphone wars

Speaking of smartphones, 2010 was when that space got really interesting.
No longer was the iPhone able to just go head-to-head with the stalwart workhorse of
the gadget world, the BlackBerry.
A new phone running Google's Android system seemed to pop up every week. The
Droid II. The Droid X The HTC Evo and the Samsung Galaxy S were just a few.
In fact, Android phones outsold iPhones during the first half of the year and, with several
new releases, will no doubt keep up that pace through year's end.
In October, computing giant Microsoft officially got into the game, announcing a pile of
different phones that would run its Windows Phone 7 operating system.
And with its Bold and Torch phones, BlackBerry has embraced the touchscreen phone
world, hoping to meld the security and efficiency that professionals crave with some of
the iPhone's fun.

App-tastic

Software is so 1990-something.
The app-store model pioneered by Apple for its phones took off in a big way in 2010.
Obviously, Apple rolled out a new online store for apps for the iPad. But it followed with
a bigger surprise later -- announcing that an app store for Macs will open in January.
In October, the Android apps store broke the 100,000 mark. That's still far fewer apps
than Apple offers, but it showed that the model was growing steadily.
And in December, Google announced it was opening an app store for its Chrome
browser as well.
It's certainly been a paradigm shift in how computer programs are purchased. And, we
suspect, its really just a secret plot by "Angry Birds" to take over the world.

Privacy matters

Online privacy has been a hot topic on the Web for a while. But this year, it seemed to
constantly be in the news.
(You know, the kind of news that CNN did a whole series about).
The more time we spend online, the more of a digital footprint we leave And should
someone savvy be so inclined, the easier it becomes to track that print.
On Facebook, every new change seemed to bring privacy concerns. Whether it was the
Facebook Places feature, which lets users tell others where a friend is, or changes in
users' default settings that sparked enough backlash to lead Facebook to adjust its privacy
controls, the site was clearly home base for people concerned about having their
information stolen, sold or otherwise used without their permission.
Privacy concerns cropped up again late in the year when Gawker's sites were hacked
and users' e-mails and passwords were accessed. Other users expressed security fears
about sharing their locations on Foursquare and other similar services.

Net neutrality

Net neutrality was a buzzword in tech circles for most of the year.
But it came to a head late in December when the Federal Communications Commission
adopted a set of rules to guide Web usag..
The new rules, by the way, did not seem to make anyone happy.
Internet-freedom advocates wanted stronger protections that would guarantee service
providers won't be able to pick and choose which content (oh, say, their own) gets
delivered quickest and which lags behind.
They also fear big businesses and wealthy individuals will one day be able to pay for
better service than everybody else.
Supporters, including President Obama, say the news rules address that, but advocates
aren't fully convinced.
Then there are the critics, mainly Republicans, who think the FCC shouldn't have gotten
involved in business on the Web at all.
The final chapter on this one hasn't been written. The regulations will almost certainly be
challenged in court. And if they survive, January will see the GOP take control of the
U.S. House and strengthen its minority in the Senate, meaning the whole plan could get
blown to bits by new legislation.