by Steven Levy

To purchase this book from Amazon.com, click here.

I finally broke down and bought my son an iPod this week. He already had a music player, something called the “Coby MPC885″ that doubled as a thumb drive. It was small, sleek, had a glowing multi-color single-line interface, and could never remember where it put the downloaded songs in its memory. So we upgraded to an iPod Nano (3G) 4GB device. It’s much better than the Coby, but it’s not perfect.

Steven Levy disagrees with me. He’s the author of The Perfect Thing, a book that focuses on the iPod and its impact on American and world cultures. As the chief technology correspondent for Newsweek, Levy certainly understands the world of electronic devices. His book chronicles the rise of the iPod and the parallel rise of Apple’s returning star, CEO Steve Jobs. I love a good history lesson, especially from authors who have the clout to sit down and interview those making that history, as Levy does.

The Perfect Thing also presents the history of the iPod as reflected in the millions of individuals who have purchased the minuscule music player, and those who hated it. From radio DJs to media moguls to ordinary school kids to rock stars, Levy discusses how the iPod has become a symbol of our present age.

But he fails to show its perfection. I’m not trying to be to picky here, but I’ve been a little stymied in trying to set up my son’s device. The most imperfect thing about this music and video player is that it rejects so much music and video content.

As a Windows developer, I naturally have a lot of Microsoft software on my system. I had ripped several of my personal CDs into my desktop system using Microsoft’s Windows Media Player application. Apple’s desktop software for the iPod, iTunes, was able to recognize these media files, but it refused to play them in their Microsoft-inspired format. Despite the double hit on my hard disk, I agreed to let my son convert those songs to iTunes’ AAC format. But that still wasn’t good enough for the iPod. In order to get these songs into the iPod, I had to reinsert the original CD and re-rip the media.

Perhaps I was doing it wrong, but I couldn’t find any other way to get those songs in. Also, my son’s excitement at watching The Chronicles of Narnia movie from our collection on that tiny screen quickly faded when iTunes refused to even recognize the presence of the DVD in the drive. It seems that only movies purchased from Apple’s web site are permitted access to the royal gates of the iPod. Anything else is media non grata.

So the iPod isn’t The Perfect Thing, at least for our family. But as Levy points out, the iPod accounted for over 60% of all Apple sales during its first few years on the market. So for Apple, it probably is perfect. And for Levy, it’s a perfect subject for his excellent writing talents.