You might have your own list of great products we saw within the past year, but so does our former Editor-in-Chief and current Forward Thinking blogger, Michael J. Miller. What tops his list? The number one item from his post, My Favorite Products of 2008:

The rise of smartphone applications. Smartphones have been around for years now; so have applications that run on them; and even 3G networks. But the introduction of the iPhone 3G and Apple's App Store has changed the landscape, by combining all of these with a user interface that just makes it really easy to download and install new applications. I've long thought that mobile applications would be huge, but it took Apple's platform to make it mainstream. Android, BlackBerry, and Windows Mobile have either introduced or are supposedly working on applications stores of their own, meaning that this concept should be much more prevalent in 2009.

Want more insight from this premier tech expert? Check out the rest of Michael's list here.