Book review: The Perfect Thing: How the iPod Shuffles Commerce, Culture and Coolness

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God is perfect. Things are idols.

As an industrial designer I have over the years designed way more products than I have fingers toes many fold, and after a while one gets to a point of philosophic surrender to the idea that even the best designs don't remember their maker, nor does it have any value at all in the end.

The thing that keeps one involved is the realization of the opportunity to affect the human condition in a positive way. In that sense, the ipod certainly has made its mark as a cultural icon more than anything else. Perhaps more than a cultural icon, a thing for a time, this time and a culture, this culture. In a few years, it too will have passed.

Now that all the fluff is out of the way, in closing I have to ask, as a designer, is everyone so enamored by the design that they can't see or they don't care that the iPod is a closed product, which shares nothing and is forever prisoner to iTunes music store, forces one the inability to use iTunes downloads anywhere else except on iTunes or iPods? Isn't anyone noticing the basic flaw in the system that smacks of none of our cultural or individual expectations and values? Maybe someone can clear it up for me.

While I listen to Hendrix, All Along the Watchtower.

Posted by: WinnebagoBoy   Posted on: 10/16/06 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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