The Perfect Thing book review

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.