Apple: Best of the Decade

Steve Jobs and Apple appeared in an extraordinary number of 2009's "Best of" lists

Our favorite: "There's an app for that," the Yale Book of Quotations' No. 3 quote of the 2009, right before Rep. Joe Wilson's "You lie" and after Captain Sully Sullenberger's "We're going to be in the Hudson."

Some other citations…

• Steve Jobs: CEO of the Decade. Fortune magazine.
• Steve Jobs: Best Performing CEO in the World. Harvard Business Review.
• Steve Jobs: Person of the Decade. Wall Street Journal.
• Steve Jobs: Most Important People in 2010. Newsweek.
• Apple: Brand of the Decade. Adweek's Best of the 2000s.
• Steve Jobs: Marketer of the Decade. Adweek's Best of the 2000s.
• "Get a Mac": Campaign of the Decade. Adweek's Best of the 2000s.
• Steve Jobs and Tim Cook: Most Influential People in Mobile Tech. Laptop magazine.
• Steve Jobs: Best CEO Buzz of 2009. Fortune.com.
• Apple, iPod, and iPhone: Silicon Valley's Top 10 of 2000s. The Real McCrea.
• Apple Releases iPhone: Top 10 Tech Stories of the Decade. CNN.com.
• Apple Unveils iTunes: Top 10 Tech Stories of the Decade. CNN.com.
• Apple: Company of the Decade. Om Malik.
• iPhone, iPod, Mac OS X, PowerBook G4: 10 Gadgets that Defined the Decade. Engadget.
• iPhone 3GS: Best Smartphone of 2009. IGN.
• MacBook Pro: Best Laptop of 2009. Popular Science.
• MacBook Pro: Best Laptop of 2009, IGN.
• Apple: Winner No. 1. TheStreet's Winners and Losers of 2009.
• Live Blogging the Apple Extravaganza: Most-Viewed Bits Post of 2009. New York Times.
• Find My Phone: Pogie Award for Second-Best Tech Idea of 2009. David Pogue, New York Times.
• "There's an app for that": 3rd place, Top Quotations of 2009. Yale Book of Quotations.
• Steve Jobs: No. 3 readers' choice for Person of the Year. TIME magazine.

Those are the Apple (AAPL) year-end superlatives we've collected. If you spot any more before the ball drops in Times Square, let us know and we'll add them to the list.

[Follow Philip Elmer-DeWitt on Twitter @philiped]