Some technological changes are incremental. Some are more than that.

This month’s announcement from Apple about new iPods, for example: There were some new iPods and a new version of iOS. Nothing earth-shattering — and I’m not knocking them for that. Not every product introduction is going to be like the first iPhone reveal.

But sometimes things — even little things — come along that fundamentally change the way you’ve been doing something for years — decades, even.

A little while ago, I upgraded my iPhone app from Chase. Like most banking apps, it had allowed me to check balances and pay bills from my phone. But the upgrade included a new feature that kind of floored me: It could take a picture of a check made out to me and make a deposit based on that image — no trip to the branch required.

Now, Chase is not the first bank to have this feature. USAA has had it for a year now. Bank of America has been playing around with it for some time, but has yet to release it to its customers. (Our Your Money columnist, Ron Lieber, wrote about this back in March.)
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