The Perfect Thing

Today I finished reading "The Perfect Thing - How the iPod Shuffles Commerce, Culture, and Coolness" by Steven Levy. Levy is a senior editor and the chief technology correspondent for Newsweek magazine.

Levy describes what he sees as the huge success and impact of the iPod not only as a personal entertainment device but as a force that has changed how we not only consume media but even create it. He describes the creation of the iPod as a saving angel for a struggling Apple when it began to design the product in the late 90s. He marks Apple's success as a combination of hard work nailing exactly the right mix of features and craftsmanship, artistic design, the no-compromise leadership of Steve Jobs, and a small dash of luck of having the right product at the right time.

Not only was the device a sales success, Levy argues, but it's software sibling iTunes paved the way for the music industry to save itself from the spiral decline of cd sales and rise of illegal file-sharing services.

He closes with a chapter on podcasting, which he says has leveled the playing field, allowing individuals to broadcast time-shifted audio or even video as easily as major corporations. He holds out high hopes for this democratization of media creation, and notes this as a major shift never achieved since the creation of modern electronic media.

I myself have found audio podcasts to be a major life-changer. From recording shortwave news broadcasts as a child in the 1980s, to recording real-audio streams in the late 1990s on a cassette recorder, I was forever looking for a way to record audio programs to listen to at my leisure. Nothing seemed to work very well - it usually took too long or too much effort to record something than it was worth.

Along came podcasts a couple of years ago, and suddenly things changed. I discovered I could subscribe to podcasts on topics that interested me, and listen to them whenever I wanted. Downloading the mp3s took literally seconds.

It may be exposing my nerdy side, but it is really something to listen to shows just about topics that I care about, and whenever I want. Household chores never seemed so...well, if not fun, then much more tolerable. It is still mind-boggling to me that I can listen to a lecture on economics by a Phd speaking at a London conference while folding my laundry. I find myself listening every chance I get - often thinking jokingly to myself when doing chores that I have to have SOMETHING to do while listening to podcasts :)

Overall, the book is an entertaining read. Then inner workings of Apple are especially interesting, highlighting the major impacts Apple has had on the computer and consumer electronics industry.