My review of Steven Levy's "The Perfect Thing"

[Dowe Keller]

Steven Levy's book consists of a series of narrative essays about the ubiquitous iPod, it's genesis, the MP3 music revolution, and the unforeseeable consequences of Apple's amazing iPod.

If you've read my review of Hackers, you know that I am a fan of Mr. Levy's writing. This book is the most on-target of the three Steven Levy books that I read.

He takes the reader on an interesting ride inside Apples product design process, through the halting, steps that lead (eventually) to the iPod. Documenting the well-known precedents, the early transistor radios that allowed kids to tune into the young, energetic rock-and-roll, anywhere, and the Sony Walkman that redefined personal music in the 80's. But also touching on important Pioneers like Andreas Pavel's "stereobelt", and DECs PJB.

Other chapters cover the rise of the iPod from its obscure beginnings to it's modern iTunes store ubiquity, the effect of the iPod on our daily commute, the MP3 craze, and the record companies crazy reactions to even the most well-intentioned enterprises, and the sometimes irrational beliefs people hold about their beloved iPods.
I love my iPod, and I definitely love this book. Go buy, borrow or steal it now!

Rating

4 Stars.

Links
• Steven Levy's home page

[Dowe Keller]

Not sure what exactly you mean, if you are referring to the shuffling of the chapters, since each chapter is really a self-contained narrative, there isn't any reason they need to be in any particular order. I like the fact that its a collection of little essays instead of a single big story. I believe that this format is what allowed him to cover the iPod phenomenon from so many disparate perspectives. A single story-line would tend to close off paths of exploration for the author IMHO.

If your talking about the chapter "Shuffle", what I find most fascinating about that is how determined people can get at trying to read some sort of pattern into truly random occurrences.

I have read three of Levy's books, "Hackers", "Insanely Great", and "The Perfect Thing". I really liked "Hackers", because it is a book about my heroes, Greenblat, Gosper, RMS, and Woz are the faces that I would carve if I were to make a computer Mt. Rushmore. That said, the subject matter was very technical, and although Levy captured the rush of programming, he was really out of his element.

He did much better in "Insanely Great", perhaps because he had learned more of the technical aspects of the business, or maybe because the Macintosh is a much more approachable subject than earlier computers. Probably a mixture of these elements, plus the fact that he was focusing on more than just the hackers and programmers, but the managers, advertisers and etc.

I would say that TPT is the best book from Steven Levy that I have yet to read. He is at the top of his game, and I think, much more in his element covering a broadly popular device from a primarily sociological point of view instead of a more techie perspective.

[James]

I'm reading through this one and enjoying it myself. What did you think about the "shuffle" feature when it came to this book?