It is only ten years since the first really usable digital DSLR, the Canon EOS 300D, hit the market but development has been at a breakneck speed, especially in the past three or four years. An article in Micro 4/3rds Photography blog charts the rise of the digital camera, linked below.
Innovation in the mirrorless especially market has been meteoric and it hardly seems possible that the first really successful large-sensor premium compact, the Fuji X100 is only three years old. Since then, the X100 has spawned the successful X-Series range of cameras and lenses. I take issue with on assertion, however: The Leica X1, introduced in 2009, is arguably the first large-sensor compact, not the X100. The X100, in many respects, was built on Leica’s success with the X1, as evidenced by the very name X100. If it had not been for the earlier X1 and its success among knowledgeable photographers, there would have been no camera called the X100. It would almost certainly have had a different name.
