iPhone: The Missing Manual
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Price: $19.99 (electronic edition available)
Pros: Respected author, thorough content and superb editing, online updates, convenient organization, and easy to read.
Cons: Limited capacity to provide updates on new and evolving capabilities.
by Gerrit Dalman, Capt, USAF
While most tech gadgets come with thousand-page manuals just like they did twenty years ago, Apple has become known for avoiding shelf-bending tomes as testament to their intuitive products. That's all well and good, but sometimes you've just got questions that can't be answered by a leaflet. Sometimes you need a checklist, a field manual, or a little OJT!
Enter O'Reilly's missing manuals. The how-to series covers everything from PowerPoint to eBay in great detail. The most recent volume, penned by prominent technology journalist David Pogue, is a thorough exploration of Apple's newest device, the much-acclaimed iPhone.
Pogue is no newcomer to Apple or to writing. He has been covering the company from his seats at MacWorld and then the New York Times for years. He even blends media with humorous videos from time to time - who can forget his comparison of Mac OS X to Windows Vista last year?! He's definitely a fan - but an honest and critical one - and what he has to say about the iPhone is pure gold.
iPhone: The Missing Manual is as thorough and organized as you would expect from a book with "manual" in the title, but it's an easier read than most publications you'd unpack along with your accessories. It's even humorous at times and thanks to the light tone, you can get from cover to cover or through a relevant chapter pretty quick.
The book is well organized and takes the reader through each of the iPhone's features one-by-one. Convenient chapter names like "Editing the Contacts List" or "Syncing Podcasts" allow you to jump straight to the content you need with ease.
Of course The Missing Manual wasn't written by Apple, but this is to your benefit because it also contains a lot of extras that you wouldn't expect to get straight from the manufacturer. Awesome tips are present throughout the text that point out some really neat capabilities (often made possible by the superb integration of web services thanks to Safari). Those of us on regular TDYs or deployments may be particularly interested in things like discounted international calls, free SMS through email, instant messaging, and using the iPhone even when you're away from a compatible cell tower.
Though the printed medium is limited when dealing with a rapidly changing platform like the iPhone, the promise of email updates addressing new and evolving features and tricks makes this a great choice when considering an iPhone reference. On the flip side, if you get the PDF version, you can browse it on your iPhone for on-the-go reference.
If you own an iPhone and don't think you're getting everything you can out of it, this book is perfect for you. If you have a doubt, check out the sample pages and you'll probably be convinced, as I am, that this is as far as you need to go for iPhone help.