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An eye-opening look at how the iPod itself has changed the nature of music.
A fascinating look at the Apple's current signature product
Suitable scrapbook of print bites & eye-candy
An interesting read on a cultural phenom.
An artifact of its own subject

Cult of iPod
Leander Kahney
Manufacturer: No Starch Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Cult of Mac
iPod, Therefore I Am
The Perfect Thing: How the iPod Shuffles Commerce, Culture, and Coolness
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The Apple Way

ASIN: 1593270666

Book Description

Wired news editor Leander Kahney follows up his bestselling The Cult of Mac with The Cult of iPod, a comprehensive look at how Apple's hit iPod is changing music, culture, and listening behavior. The Cult of iPod includes the exclusive back story of the iPod's development; looks at the many ways iPod's users pay homage to their devices; and investigates the quirkier aspects of iPod culture, such as iPod-jacking (strangers plugging into each other's iPods to discover new music), as well as the growing legions of MP3Js (regular folks who use their iPods to become DJs). Four-color throughout.

Customer Reviews:

An eye-opening look at how the iPod itself has changed the nature of music........2007-01-07

Fans of the CULT OF MAC book will find equally absorbing Leander Kahney's new look at how the iPod is revolutionizing all kinds of information. A history of the iPod's development and marketing is accompanied by colorful cultural insights and examples of iPod's vast changes to music culture and file sharing. Any interested in making, marketing or listening to music must consider THE CULT OF IPOD: it's an eye-opening look at how the iPod itself has changed the nature of music.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

A fascinating look at the Apple's current signature product.......2006-12-13

This book takes a unique look at Apple's signature product and how it has changed the way people listen to music. The book is divided into two sections.

The first section consists of the first three chapters. The iPod is introduced, and its basic functions and history explained. The rest of the book is the second part. It covers a large number of iPod topics at random. Material covered includes homemade iPod ads, the custom iPods of some celebrities, iPod DJs, and products that have been invented as a result of the iPod's existence. Stylistically, the book is designed to resemble the iPod. For example, the cover resembles the front of an iPod, and the table of contents looks like an iTunes library list. In spite of being 160 pages long, you can read the book in less than two hours due to the large number of colorful photos present.

The book is more about the cultural impact of the iPod than its inner mechanics. It is not one of those "Missing Manuals" you often see. There is a fascinating exploded view of the iPod internals on pages 36 and 37, but more interesting - at least to me - was the discussion on iPod jacking starting on page 103. There are also stories about people using their iPods to block out the rest of the world, people using the white ear buds to show they are part of the "iPod group", and alternatively, people who use ordinary earphones to hide the fact that they are using an iPod who are trying to assert that they do not follow the crowd.

There are humorous stories about the perils of being an iPod-using Microsoft employee, and serious ones such as the one about posters that mimic iPod ads but are actually protesting the Iraq war. There really is something here for everyone. Don't let its "coffee table book" look fool you - there really is some deep and thoughtful material here.

Suitable scrapbook of print bites & eye-candy.......2006-11-04

As a new user (I know, years behind the curve) of an I-Pod and an instructor at a technical university, this book interested me doubly. I wanted to learn about the making of this product, its design and marketing, and how the aura of cool was generated triumphantly around this, say, and not the Rio. I referred my students to this book as an example of how to analyze the cultural impacts of a specific technological product. The table of contents mimics the readout on the I-Pod screen, and the contents themselves combine snippets of print, often in sidebar or columnal formats, as played against graphics--the visual and the textual jostle for attention, fittingly, in this book about not only the nuts-and-bolts of the machine, but how it looks: surely one of the key features that led this handsome player to succeed while other clunkier models had failed to gain massive sales.

At times, this volume's layout can be like reading Wired Magazine: a bit overwhelming when you simply want to look up a short entry. Like Wired, it's a bit pricy for what's actually compiled as text within as opposed to the attention-getting graphics. Kahney, a reporter for Wired News, reports here as a suitable follow-up to "The Cult of Mac," according to the back blurb (made to imitate in its copy and layout the I-Pod's own iconography). As a non-Mac user, it's intriguing to get a vivid if not too detailed glimpse into how the other 20% lives with their Cupertino- designed accoutrements.

This book admittedly does feel cobbled together as an assembly of bite-sized features and eye-candy pictorials, familiar to any reader of Wired. Yet, I suppose the author knows his audience. If the likely reader of this book is as curious about not the how-to of the I-Pod but the why, then this book begins to provide suggestions. Not for the newbie needing advice on its mimimalistically presented operation, but for the adept wishing to delight in its Zen-like presence. It's for a crowd who I presume is as enamored with the appearance of a product as well as the function of a product-- and this expresses Apple's cachét within the computer realm neatly. Therefore, it's an appropriate combination for the eyes that accompanies the soundtrack of one's life for each user's ears.

A suitable print companion would be Dylan Jones' "IPod, Therefore I Am" published also in 2005: this in Nick Hornsby "High Fidelity"-fashion conveys Jones' packing of his 40Gb jukebox with the best of his many records, and how our consumption of music has been affected by its portability. Malcolm McLaren back around 1982 predicted that music would become less important for younger generations but more disposable and therefore sought after as a cheap commodity. (This observation quoted in another fine 2005 study, Simon Reynolds' "Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978-1984.") This separation of the medium from the message, so to speak, reflects, perhaps, two decades later, the ubiquity of the device and the detachment of the record sleeve, the tape, the disc, from the music itself in digitized bytes and invisible shapes.

So, how does Leander Kahney succeed? Theorists and then journalists will no doubt follow the first reports on the I-Pod's arrival, as did Theodore Roscek and Stewart Brand and James Fallows and Tracy Kidder twenty-odd years ago in the wake of the first Apples and PCs. This larger-format but only 150 pp. entry, then, reminds me of two decades ago, when non-techies began raving about their PCs and how such devices would liberate us from drudgery and bring about unity. It's a primer to a phenomenon. Utopian, perhaps, in some of its claims, but this is probably the earliest entry in what will be a short shelf of studies of the impact of the shift from what's been labelled a move from broad- to narrow- to pod-casting, as the websites that supplanted networks in turn are superseded by programming tailored not to but by the individual. Kahney concludes that it's not technology but our culture that makes us antisocial, and that the I-Pod is not to be blamed. In fact, as podcasting and the sharing of playlists shows, it may in fact simply be the latest and far more easy-to-use evolved version of the mix-cassette tapes that were once lovingly made and exchanged as tokens of friendship and shared admiration those couple of decades ago.

An interesting read on a cultural phenom........2006-07-07

I recently purchased an ipod and before I received it, I wanted to read up on it. I was looking more for a how-to book, which this isn't. This book instead is a very interesting read on the beginning of the ipod to the impact on society the ipod has had. The book is well written, with interesting facts and great color photos. I would highly recommend this book to any ipod owner or future owner. I did not buy this book, rather I rented it from the public library.

An artifact of its own subject.......2006-04-03

I had checked out Mr. Kahney's book hoping to find some objective insight into what has become the news media's technological darling. But objectivity is nullified when a disclaimer such as the following appears on the publication page: "Rather than use a trademark symbol with every occurrence of a trademarked name, we are using the names only in an editorial fashion and **to the benefit of the trademark owner**, with no intention of infringement of the trademark" (emphasis added). This lack of objectivity is further evidenced by the last line of the first paragraph: "Inside Apple's little white box is magic, pure magic, in the guise of music." To paraphrase The Lovin' Spoonful, if you believe in magic then this book's for you.

As such, the book does provide some insight into the iPod phenomenon. The chapters read as newspaper or magazine articles but they are interspersed among countless lightweight stories that seem like print versions of TV news features about the eponymous subject (iPods: They're Hot!). The articles, such as they are, are actually quite good but, again, objectivity is suspect throughout.

For those interested in the iPod for any reason, this book can operate as a launch pad for more indepth study. But it cannot be used a sole source. It will become less useful over time as more objective books and articles are published. Eventually, it will just be another artifact of the early years of the iPod.

Average customer rating:

Excellent insider book
A book for everyone!
A great tale of our Mac Lifestyle.
Mac lovers unite!
A great book for a Macintosh lover

The Cult of Mac (Paperback edition)
Leander Kahney
Manufacturer: No Starch Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Insanely Great: The Life and Times of Macintosh, the Computer That Changed Everything

ASIN: 1593271220

Book Description

No product on the planet enjoys the devotion of a Macintosh computer. Famously dedicated to their machines, many Mac fans eat, sleep and breathe Macintosh. In The Cult of Mac, Wired News managing editor Leander Kahney takes an in-depth look at Mac users and their unique, creative, and often very funny culture. From people who get Mac tattoos and haircuts, to those who furnish their apartments out of empty Mac boxes, the book details Mac fandom in all of its forms. This paperback edition includes an all-new chapter about the iPod, updates throughout, and new photos that reflect current Apple technology.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent insider book.......2007-03-29

This was a great book about the people that make up the Mac cultsa round the world.

A book for everyone!.......2007-03-24

The Cult of Mac
By Leander Kahney
Publisher: No Starch Press
Price: 39.95 US
ISBN: 1886411832

I was delighted when I was given a copy of this book to read and review. Not only is it about something I LOVE..... it is written so that even my parents would understand my passion. A lovely coffee-table book, this 260+ page book is a visual treat, with many pictures of our beloved machines, and the fans who buy them. You won't find a detailed look into Apple, Inc. This is about us, the users. The chapters are focused on specific traits, or habits of the Macintosh community. And while we all KNOW why we love our Macs, this book will help others learn, and perhaps make the switch.

There are also many little known factoids, and a full chapter devoted to the Japanese obsession for Macintosh computers. Many will remember, and perhaps still have, the holiday ornament that looks like an all-in-one classic. Fans have made replicas out of cardboard and paper for decades. Some even use the packing boxes as furniture.

One of the things about this book that readers may like, is that the chapters can be read in any sequence. The topics are as individual as our users, and no strict order is required. Read about what interests you. There are references enough to follow on your own, so if you are interested in digging deeper, you can.

While some of the material is obviously dated already, this is not about the latest and greatest, but about the phenomenon of the Apple user. One word that stands out in many of the chapters is "community". The author stresses many times how incredibly loyal Macintosh fans are, in spite of the wide range of users. From tattooed bikers, to captains of industry, no barrier is too high, or wide, or deep to make any appreciable separation between Macheads.

Not to sound trite, but this is a "must have" kind of book. And it looks great with any décor.........

A great tale of our Mac Lifestyle........2007-02-24

When your family asks you why you have a Mac, this book
explains it for you. We are unique in our view of life. The fact that
our cult is different is just fine with us. The text covers the roots
of the Mac experience, the skin ink, the haircuts, the car art, the
mods we have done, the inspirations we share with the creators
within Apple. We offer up our ideas for the next big thing freely,
hoping to become some small part of the process by posting on
discussion boards and rumor sites for those already at Apple
to notice.
But, this book goes even further. It recalls how every person who
buys a Mac, receives so much more than just a machine to do a
particular task. They receive a new pathway into a future. One
where some will find joy in the special thought that went into the
packaging the Mac was shipped in. We will throw a party for the
unwrapping of that new Mac and then take photos to share with
friends who were absent that day. Others will save the packaging
for later or build something out of the box. Get enough Apple
boxes together and build a sofa. Get a few older Macs together
and build a bar, a network, and a piece of art.
If you as I have bought Macs since the 80's, this book is a joyous
ride back. If you are new to the Apple clan, read about where we
have been. The inspirations that Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and
Guy Kawasaki brought into the business world. Of the developers
and suppliers who have created all of those little gizmos thingies
for the Macs, the Power Macs, for the ibooks, the PowerBooks, the
MacBooks, the minis, for the ipods, and for our lives. And mainly,
this book is for the users. For those of us within "The Cult of Mac"
and of how we relish life.

Mac lovers unite!.......2007-02-12

The Cult of Mac.

For the true Mac lover. Possibly the largest computing subculture on this planet. This book is about everything Mac in a fashion sense. The first coffee table book for Mac that I can think of.

There is nothing technical about this book. It's solely about the Mac life style. Shave a Mac apple into the back of your head. It's alright here. The Mac. It's not just the worlds best computer it's also an art form. Not using that iMac any more no problem, remove the hardware and convert it into a fish tank. Buy the clothing. Use the Apple Lisa as bookends. This book is filled with ideas of what to do with that old Mac that you don't use and it's too beautiful or there's too much of a emotinal attachment to send it to the recycling plant. Revel in your own personal Mac-dom. Think different

A great book for a Macintosh lover.......2006-12-16

This is a great cofee-table book for the Mac obsessed, or even those just interested in one of the great design icons of our time. As the member of an Apple Mac User Group, I can testify to the partisanship that can take over once you start using an Apple computer, but I've yet to participate in the depths of obsession documented so colorfully here. There isn't a lot in this book on the history of Apple, which has been done over by many other books anyway, instead it's a well-illustrated look at what the Mac has meant to its users. My favorite section was on the Japanese who continue to hang on to their original Macs long after the average user has replaced theirs several time over, updating and customising their machines in elaborate and imaginative ways.

Average customer rating:

Libro de La Magia Sagrada de Abra-Melin
Mac Gregor-Mathers
Manufacturer: Kier Editorial
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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