The Perfect Thing
How the iPod Shuffles Commerce, Culture, and Coolness
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Narrated by:
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Anthony Rapp
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By:
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Steven Levy
About this listen
Besides being one of the most successful consumer products in decades, the iPod has changed our behavior and even our society. It has transformed Apple from a computer company into a consumer-electronics giant. It has remolded the music business, altering not only the means of distribution but even the ways in which people enjoy and think about music. Its ubiquity and its universally acknowledged coolness have made it a symbol for the digital age itself, with commentators remarking on "the iPod generation". Now the iPod is beginning to transform the broadcast industry, too, as podcasting becomes a way to access radio and television programming. Meanwhile, millions of "Podheads" obsess about their gizmo, reveling in the personal soundtrack it offers them, basking in the social cachet it offers, and even wondering whether the device itself has its own musical preferences.
Steven Levy, the chief technology correspondent for Newsweek magazine and a longtime Apple watcher, is the ideal writer to tell the iPod's tale. He has had access to all the key players in the iPod story, including Steve Jobs, Apple's charismatic cofounder and CEO, whom Levy has known for over 20 years.
©2006 Steven Levy. All rights reserved (P)2006 Simon and Schuster Inc. All rights reserved. AUDIOWORKS is an imprint of Simon and Schuster Audio Division, Simon and Schuster Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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"Apple fans and iPod owners will enjoy Levy's exploration." (Publishers Weekly)
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If you cut off a spider's leg, it's crippled; if you cut off its head, it dies. But if you cut off a starfish's leg it grows a new one, and the old leg can grow into an entirely new starfish. The Starfish and the Spider argues that organizations fall into two categories: "spiders", which have a rigid hierarchy, and "starfish", which rely on the power of peer relationships.
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Centralized and decentralized models
- By Chan Meng on 12-07-07
By: Ori Brafman, and others
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Losing the Signal
- The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry
- By: Jacquie McNish, Sean Silcoff
- Narrated by: William Hughes
- Length: 11 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Losing the Signal is a riveting story of a company that toppled global giants before succumbing to the ruthlessly competitive forces of Silicon Valley. This is not a conventional tale of modern business failure by fraud and greed. The rise and fall of BlackBerry reveals the dangerous speed at which innovators race along the information superhighway.
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Fascinating
- By Gerardo A Dada on 09-05-15
By: Jacquie McNish, and others
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Service Games
- The Rise and Fall of SEGA: Enhanced Edition
- By: Sam Pettus
- Narrated by: Tom Racine
- Length: 17 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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New Edition! More content, images, and corrected text and facts. Monochrome edition. Starting with its humble beginnings in the 1950s and ending with its swan-song, the Dreamcast, in the early 2000s, this is the complete history of Sega as a console maker. Before home computers and video game consoles, before the Internet and social networking, and before motion controls and smartphones, there was Sega.
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The Story of the Fall of Sega
- By Austin on 01-05-15
By: Sam Pettus
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The New Analog
- Listening and Reconnecting in a Digital World
- By: Damon Krukowski
- Narrated by: Damon Krukowski
- Length: 3 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Having made his name in the late 1980s as a member of the indie band Galaxie 500, Damon Krukowski has watched cultural life lurch from analog to digital. And as an artist who has weathered the transition, he has challenging, urgent questions for both creators and consumers about what we have thrown away in the process.
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Very Interesting!
- By Daniel Cascaddan on 07-02-17
By: Damon Krukowski
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No Better Time
- The Brief, Remarkable Life of Danny Lewin, the Genius Who Transformed the Internet
- By: Molly Knight Raskin
- Narrated by: Christine Marshall
- Length: 6 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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No Better Time tells of a young, driven mathematical genius who wrote a set of algorithms that would create a faster, better Internet. It's the story of a beautiful friendship between a loud, irreverent student and his soft-spoken MIT professor, of a husband and father who spent years struggling to make ends meet only to become a billionaire almost overnight with the success of Akamai Technologies, the Internet content delivery network he cofounded with his mentor.
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An Overlooked Hero of 9-11
- By Jean on 05-27-16
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Electronic Dreams
- How 1980s Britain Learned to Love the Computer
- By: Tom Lean
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
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In Electronic Dreams, Tom Lean tells the story of how computers invaded British homes for the first time, as people set aside their worries of electronic brains and Big Brother and embraced the wonder technology of the 1980s. This book charts the history of the rise and fall of the home computer, the family of futuristic and quirky machines that took computing from the realm of science and science fiction to being a user-friendly domestic technology.
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Awesome outline of electronic history
- By Johnny on 09-28-17
By: Tom Lean
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Broad Band
- The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet
- By: Claire L. Evans
- Narrated by: Claire L. Evans
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Women are not ancillary to the history of technology; they turn up at the very beginning of every important wave. But they've often been hidden in plain sight, their inventions and contributions touching our lives in ways we don't even realize. Vice reporter and YACHT lead singer Claire L. Evans finally gives these unsung female heroes their due with her insightful social history of the Broad Band, the women who made the Internet what it is today. Evans shows us how these women built and colored the technologies we can't imagine life without.
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Inspiring
- By Jean on 03-29-18
By: Claire L. Evans
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Automate This
- How Algorithms Came to Rule Our World
- By: Christopher Steiner
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 7 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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It used to be that to diagnose an illness, interpret legal documents, analyze foreign policy, or write a newspaper article you needed a human being with specific skills - and maybe an advanced degree or two. These days, high-level tasks are increasingly being handled by algorithms that can do precise work not only with speed but also with nuance. These "bots" started with human programming and logic, but now their reach extends beyond what their creators ever expected.
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good start, book runs out of sustenace
- By RealTruth on 02-15-13
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The Click Moment
- Seizing Opportunity in an Unpredictable World
- By: Frans Johansson
- Narrated by: Erik Synnestvedt
- Length: 7 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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On the one hand we aren’t surprised by the uncertainty of everyday life, but on the other we believe that success can be analyzed and planned for. It is a revealing paradox. The implications are explosive and they obliterate every common-sense notion we have about strategy and planning. The Click Moment is about two very simple but highly provocative ideas.
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Outstanding book!
- By Anilyn Karel on 08-26-24
By: Frans Johansson
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The Filter Bubble
- What the Internet Is Hiding from You
- By: Eli Pariser
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 7 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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In December 2009, Google began customizing its search results for each user. Instead of giving you the most broadly popular result, Google now tries to predict what you are most likely to click on. According to MoveOn.org board president Eli Pariser, Google's change in policy is symptomatic of the most significant shift to take place on the Web in recent years: the rise of personalization.
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Now in the top 3 best books I've ever read
- By Brian Esserlieu on 05-26-11
By: Eli Pariser
What listeners say about The Perfect Thing
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Charlotte A. Hu
- 05-19-13
This Book is a Blast
This book is hardly academic, but it has a lot of fascinating data. It rambles and I love the narration in the audible.com version. The narrator's delivery is awesome. It's also awesome that I was listening to the audible version of the book on ... of course ... my iPod.
I'm not a Mac-ophile. Unlike some of the comments in the book about the spiritual journey of the company Apple, I'm not really there. However, I really enjoyed the description of the how the iPod came to be. How the designers really wanted something "perfect" and kept pushing to create it. I love their obsession with minimalism. The focus on designing something to such a level that the design itself becomes virtually invisible -- that the functionality of the device is key.
The discussions about how the iPod has made people into Stepfords like the bad robot wife movie is hilarious. Anyone with a long commute knows the daily mindlessness and sense of complete lost time, even life from those lifeless, senseless minutes that seem to drain years from one's life. My iPod took the drear out, engaged my mind with audiobooks or at least let me feel like the time was valuable with foreign language vocabulary study.
I find this book odd for its obsession with music, since music is only one of many types of media one can consume on this device. One company, sadly gone out of business, created a set of Chinese character flashcards for the iPod, which I thought was awesome. I love Lumosity, so I was really stoked to hear they'd created Apps for the iPod, but when I went to the iTunes store, was sad to discover they are only for the iPod touch.
The pocket entertainment system has significantly reduced the pain of plane rides and unfortunately, I have endured too many transoceanic flights -- the worst is a half-globe flight with a wailing infant -- but the iPod adds a cottony distance between me and the child making sleep possible and taking the edge off the baby's high notes.
Honestly, I can't imagine life without this thing now. It improves my life in so many ways. I can consume audio books at a significantly higher rate than I was ever able to consume paperbooks. And I can carry them with me without exceeding airline luggage limits. I can change, according to brain fatigue from Chinese philosophy or Japanese language instruction to Judas Priest with the same swish and flick hero Harry uses to vanquish villains in Potter flicks.
Thanks to the Apple team and thanks to Steven Levy for this fun and frolicking history of the thing that modernized life.
I read on the internet that iPods have sold more than 300 million. In this book, Steven Levy notes that the walkman sold around 300 million. Is that right? Are they neck and neck for sales? Seems odd somehow.
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Overall
- aharris
- 01-26-07
An enjoyable listen
I enjoyed this audiobook. I knew it was a fluff piece and it didn't have character development, etc, but its a book about the iPod, so that's not what I was looking for. It was an interesting look at the making of the iPod and some very "fanboy" observances. As much as I enjoy my MP3 player (not an iPod, btw), it IS just another means to listen to my own audio collection, albeit a very cool one.
And agreeing with the previous reviewer, the chapter on shuffle-mode was quite a bit long in the tooth and really only worth a couple of minutes mention.
The quality of this audiobook's recording was substandard. The voice was "tinny" and not as clear as most other audiobooks, which is ironic as heck.
Overall, though, if you consider yourself a tech fan, I would recommend this book.
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8 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Todd Mundt
- 07-05-07
An Appreciation of the iPod
An enjoyable book, keeping in mind that this isn't a critical appraisal - it's more about the phenomenon of the iPod and its impact on culture and music consumption. I saw myself in the book - everything from the new enjoyment I derive from my music collection thanks to my library's portability and shuffle, to the physical connection I feel with my iPod, and now, my iPhone. I think Levy nicely captured the tactile enjoyment many people derive from their iPods. He also filled in a few gaps (for me, at least) in the iPod story.
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4 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Scott T. Hards
- 01-14-09
Mildly entertaining, but too lightweight at times
This title reads more like a collection of magazine articles or essays than a solidly researched book. Given its source - Newsweek tech writer Steven Levy - that doesn't surprise. The sections that discussed the development of the iPod and the thinking of Apple's staff were interesting, but lengthy discussions of hip young people trying to out-cool each other with their music selection, or an inane chapter on whether the shuffle function is really random (of course it is!) bog down what could have been a much more in-depth look at an admittedly amazing product and cultural phenomenon.
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Overall
- dennis
- 12-02-06
not a book, it's a commercial!
Not one single character developed to relate to. Whats worse is no info either. He makes a hundred references to how "sexy", how "naked the beauty is". Tries to get you to believe it is the "drug of today". It is neither. Nothing helpful like, tips, shortcuts, fixes support, websites, NOTHING! The whole book is about how your playlist can make you cool. Dozons of obscure bands are mentioned.(with no sample sound of course.) Nothing about photos, or t.v. programs, The man does not even talk about the fact it playes videos or movies. One whole chapter wasted on, if the "shuffle is random or not! Yes it is. In his perfection rant, he doesn't wish to talk about the high cost-crashes-cables that break in your hand-no support-$30.00 for a piece of plastic accessory-downloads of inconsistent quality and volumn-you buy it and they think they still own it, dictating exactly what you may or may not do. We can go on. Bottom line, the artist sets the mood, and delivers the emotions, not the i-pod. It's a high teck tape recorder, thats all. The positive item is the author has a great vocabulary and a good writer. In the end no info was exchanged, i learned almost nothing,and it was a waste of time and money.
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7 people found this helpful