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1. Interesting reading in 2022 when the iPod is phased out and to compare cultural effects 15 yrs later
   This book is an interesting reading in 2022 when the iPod is phased out and to compare cultural impacts from that time with today’s 15 years later.Steven Levy has been able to not only tell how the iPod was come to be what it was originally, the challenges with portable players before, with the music labels resistance to new technology that could affect revenues but to show how people were impacted by white box device and its offsprings. It offers insights on how only by very insistence of Steve Jobs the labels were convinced to try selling the music on a 3rd party store, the original iTunes Store with a not crippling Digital Rights Management (DRM) mechanism.Also, it is very interesting seeing how people would start comparing songs they held on their devices, how shuffle pseudo randomness became an issue and the start of the Podcast movement. Above all it, how we can see some parallels with todays influencers TikToks’s dance and Instagrams reels Steven could never forsee in their current form but the behaviour still have been imagined on the book. Or think of music streaming being possible.It is kind a sad feeling having iPods retired and in essence an enjoyable reading revisiting how things have changed and great new developments we have.

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2. Interesting read
   I read this book when it first came out and enjoyed it greatly – I found it an interesting read full of small insights into the industry in general and Apple specifically. As someone that has been a casual user of iPods and other MP3 players for years (first was a Diamond Rio 500), as I read the book (and saw Steven Levy on Charlie Rose) it explained why certain things are they way they are with the iPod. I enjoy history of technology books, and this one is well-written.

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3. Unique and Fascinating!
   Steven Levy has written an excellent book that I didn’t want to put down. It not only traces the development of the iPod over the last five years, but the book is filled with independent chapters that can be, and in fact should be, read in any order. Indeed, when looking at multiple copies of this book, you’ll find only chapter 1 is in the same place–other chapters are “shuffled” and appear in different orders. I found myself enjoying this feature as much as the iPod–first I read about Podcasts, then Downloading, then how the iPod remains so “cool” for such a wide range of people.I chose to read this book not only because of how amazed I am at how people (including my teenaged kids) love their iPods so much, but also because I’m curious about the future of music as we know it, the disappearance of the CD and along with it the album cover and lyric booklet, and the explosion of songs available for purchase through the iTunes store.The writing in this book is terrific–informative and provocative. I highly recommend it!

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4. Far From Perfect (But Still Pretty Good)
   People looked at me in a strange way when I told them I was reading a 300-page book about the iPod. “No, seriously. It’s a whole book about the iPod!” Steven Levy, author of The Perfect Thing is senior editor and chief technology correspondent for Newsweek magazine and the author of five previous books. Levy is a technophile and over the course of his career has seen many products, many technologies, come and go. But I doubt any new product has aroused his interest like the iPod. Levy is absolutely in love with the iPod and with Steve Jobs, the man responsible for overseeing its creation. This book often reads like a hagiography of the man and his little technological marvel.Interestingly, the book is “shuffled” so that different copies of the book will have the chapters in different order. While this is a neat idea, and a unique one that fits well with one of the iPod’s most popular features, it means that there is no flow from chapter-to-chapter and also that there is some repetition. I can only imagine the logistical nightmare this represented for those who had to edit and proof the book!In some ways it seems silly to write a biography of the iPod since it is, after all, only five years old (having released on October 23, 2001). It seems akin to writing a biography of an actress like Dakota Fanning. Sure she’s a fantastic little actress, is highly sought after in Hollywood, and has already made her mark in Tinseltown (and we loved her in Charlotte’s Web), but the fact remains that she is only twelve and her career is only beginning. Surely it would be too easy to write her biography. And surely it is too early to write seriously about the iPod. Then again, the iPod is not going anywhere soon and seems to be gaining both acceptance and prominence so perhaps a book is in order.Despite displaying more than a little bias (how is this for hyperbole?: “The iPod nano was so beautiful that it seemed to have dropped down from some vastly advanced alien civilization. It had the breathtaking compactness of a lustrous Oriental artifact. It wasn’t really much bigger than a large mint left on your pillow at a fine hotel.”) this is an interesting and even an important book. The iPod is a significant device that has been accepted and embraced by countless millions of people. It may well come to define a whole generation. And if not that, it will surely speak volumes about a generation. It also represents a technology that Christians would do well to consider. After all, when we listen to our iPods we tend to tune out the world around us. In some ways I think the iPod is representative of the self-centered, individualistic culture we live in. By parking the little white buds in our ears, we can enter a little world all our own. We can turn off and tune in. We can listen to what we want to hear while ignoring everything around us. We can easily allow this good invention to become destructive to our relationships and even to our faith.I was disappointed that the author spent the vast majority of the book looking at the past and the present with very little time dedicated to looking to the future and attempting to understand what the iPod’s long term effects will be. Maybe a philosopher or historian or sociologist would be more qualified to attempt to predict how the iPod will be remembered ten or a hundred years from now. Is it a piece of technology that will be lost to history or will it be remembered as groundbreaking and as a product that changed the world? In the absence of such analysis, the most interesting chapters are those dealing with the history and development of the iPod. Ones dealing with identity, coolness and the personal nature of the iPod are also well worth reading.One awfully tedious chapter deals with the “shuffle” feature and whether or not it is truly random (the answer being yes and no – no because computers cannot be truly random because they need to have some kind of a starting point, but yes because the songs are chosen as randomly as is possible). Levy decides, and this is true, I’m sure, that the human mind just doesn’t cope well with randomness. Thus when our iPods seem to favor a particular song or artist, it is really just our minds playing tricks on us (which, of course, rings hollow when we hear a song for the third or fourth time in a day!).Despite a few less-than-stellar chapters which seemed to be little more than filler, this was a valuable read as I sought to understand the iPod generation. The Perfect Thing is far from a perfect book (you probably saw that line coming!). Still, it is interesting enough for the most part and raises some interesting questions and concerns. At the very least it helped me understand the incredible, growing phenomenon that is the iPod.

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5. Fascinating and Exceptionally Well Written
   If I have one complaint about the Steve Jobs’ biography from Walter Isaacson, it’s that certain topics could be not covered in sufficient depth. I understand why; the book was about the life and times of one of the most influential people in the last fifty years. Yet, while reading it, I couldn’t help but want to know more about many things, not the least of which was the iPod.Enter The Perfect Thing: How the iPod Shuffles Commerce, Culture, and Coolness. This is a book about one thing and its cultural impact: the iPod. While the iPhone has arguably made its predecessor obsolete, Levy’s book is a compelling trip down memory lane and a fascinating examination of Apple’s first blockbuster, non-computer product.While caught up in the iPod craze, I somehow missed interesting things Levy calls out, like the fact that The Pope actually used one. Levy is an excellent writer and I’ll be buying his other books after this posts. The Perfect thing allows us, in retrospect, to appreciate Apple’s truly game-changing product and its remarkable run. Buy it.

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6. waste

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7. I bought this book for my IT fan husband LAST year and i am now myself engrossed in it. A great account of the development of the ipod; design , naming, branding and why it’s cool. Odd layout of paragraphs but the font and the cover make it almost as touchable as the thing itself. Loved the chapter on the random ness ( or not) of the shuffle.

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