iPod & iTunes: The Missing Manual, 2nd Edition

emmastory writes "When I mentioned this book to some of my friends, the response was usually either 'Doesn't the iPod come with a manual?' or 'Does the iPod even need a manual?' There is, in fact, a little CD-sized booklet that comes with the iPod, and it's true that you probably don't need much more than that if all you need to know is how to turn the thing on and play a song. But one of the great things about the Missing Manuals series is that while they tell you everything a manual ought to, they also tell you an awful lot that a manual never would." Read on for the rest of emmastory's review of iPod & iTunes: The Missing Manual, Second Edition. iPod & iTunes: The Missing Manual, Second Edition author J.D. Biersdorfer pages 349 publisher Pogue Press/O'Reilly rating 9 reviewer Emma Story ISBN 0596006586 summary An inexpensive way to get the most out of your iPod

For example, if you ask someone (like an Apple store employee) how to get MP3s off of an iPod and onto a computer, they'll tell you that the transfer is only supposed to go the other way. The idea is that you're not supposed to be able to just collect the entire music libraries of anyone who happens to drop by your home with his or her iPod. Of course, it turns out that there are plenty of legitimate scenarios in which you might want to be able to get your own music off of your MP3 player. (I certainly intend to rescue my music from my iPod should the external drive that's currently holding my files ever give up the ghost.) The Missing Manual, on the other hand, devotes several pages to detailing the various ways you can go about accomplishing the unspeakable act of iPod-to-computer copying.

And additional content isn't the only thing you'll find in this book -- there's also a significant difference in the depth and helpfulness of the respective texts. I'll compare their coverage of a common question among new iPod owners: what's going on when the iPod screen always says "Do not disconnect"? Here's the answer as given by the iPod User Guide:

Important: If it is not safe to disconnect iPod, a message on the iPod screen says "Do not disconnect." Don't disconnect iPod if you see this message. You could damage files on iPod. If you see the "Do not disconnect" message, you must eject iPod (see page 22) before disconnecting it.

Apple's apparent fear of possessives and articles aside, this is pretty much as bare-bones as you can get. It tells you one thing you can do if you're seeing this message, but not why it's happening, or what to do if ejecting the iPod doesn't make it go away. Here's an answer to the same question in the Missing Manual:

If you've turned on the "Enable disk use" box in iTunes' iPod Preferences panel, the "Do Not Disconnect" message appears on the iPod at all times. You have to unmount the iPod from the computer manually to make it go away (see page 215).

Even if you haven't set up the iPod to work as a FireWire disk, its hard drive may not have spun down properly. If it's stuck in a loop, the "Do Not Disconnect" message may also appear. Try clicking the Eject iPod button in iTunes, or dragging the iPod icon on the desktop to the Mac's Trash, to see if you get the "OK to Disconnect" message. If that doesn't work, try resetting the iPod as described on page 46 and then try ejecting it.

Note: If you live in a cross-platform household and have both Macintosh- and Windows-flavor iPods lying around, make sure you're plugging the WinPod into the PC. Macs are generally friendly towards PC-formatted 'Pods, but not vice versa. Mixing them up can lead to several error messages, including the "Do Not Disconnect" message (even as the computer won't mount or recognize the iPod) and the "This iPod is linked to another Music Library" message.

(Note that I plucked that answer from the iTunes troubleshooting section - there's also a similar response in the MusicMatch section.) I don't know about you, but this strikes me as infinitely more useful and enlightening than the User Guide's response (no offense to Apple's technical writers intended). And of course there are questions answered in the book that aren't addressed at all in the User Guide, nor on Apple's site.

There are plenty of other things that you'll find in this book that you might not already know, and that you certainly won't find in the included booklet - like information about the iPod on Linux Project, or descriptions of a number of different shareware and freeware programs you can grab to enhance your iPod. You'll find tricks to extend your battery life, ways to make the 'Pod behave even more like a PDA than it does by default, and how to boot off of your iPod should the need arise. Of course, it's true that you can find a lot of this on the web by yourself without having to pay for a book, so part of your decision about buying it will depend on whether you care more about spending $24.95 or saving yourself some time.

If you're wondering whether it's worth buying if you don't use Mac OS or if you have an older iPod, rest assured - coverage of all the different iPods is included, and there's material on both versions of iTunes, as well as MusicMatch for Windows. There's not a whole lot about using an iPod with a *nix box, although the topic isn't completely ignored (as you might expect). There's enough about the iPod itself that Linux users wouldn't be making a mistake to pick it up. On the other hand, it's probably not worth buying if you don't have an iPod and are just curious about iTunes. But iTunes is covered in almost every general Mac book out there, so you're not totally out of luck if that's the case. For most iPod owners, though, this book is a great and inexpensive way to get the most out of your new best friend (as long as your new best friend happens to be an iPod).

You can purchase iPod & iTunes: The Missing Manual, Second Edition from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews. To see your own review here, carefully read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Comments

Might be worth it...

[DaHat]

My iPod is one of my few toys that I actually would like to know more about and might be willing to pay for an added manual for... provided I learn useful things from it.

My opinioin

[aoasus]

Of course, it's true that you can find a lot of this on the web by yourself without having to pay for a book, so part of your decision about buying it will depend on whether you care more about spending $24.95 or saving yourself some time.

Pretty much sums it up for me....

Re:My opinioin

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you saying your time is worthless, or that you think you can find it very easily, very quickly?

But will it tell me how to get Linux on there?

[blueZ3]

That's what I want to know :-)

More Knowledge = More Fun

[grunt107]

Any book that exposes "hidden" features or ease-of-use, IMO, makes the toys more enjoyable. Like the hidden API call/DB function that saves development and run times.

Re:Worth it?

[Kenja]

The price is higher its true, however for my dollar you get more. Also the storage space is an issue, but I dont realy need to carry around more then half a gigs worth of songs at a time.

As for the rest....
I pull the CF/SD card out and stick it into a USB2/IDE/SCSI flash reader. How is that a "drastically slower sync interface"?

I would put the sturdiness of many PDAs on par with the iPod. Sory to tell ya, but plastic and alunimun are prety much the same regardless of the logo.

I have a touch screen on my PDA, 100% customizable interface with no hardware buttons. Works great one handed, while in my pocket etc...

Re:Worth it?

[martingunnarsson]

So true. Think about it, you can listen to music almost no matter what you are doing, but watching video requires your attention. That's why portable video players never will be as big a hit as portable music players. Also, the iPod runs pretty long on one charge. I think the specs say 8 or 9 hours, and that ain't very far from the truth with a new unit. I love my iPod, I rarely leave home without it.

Zero-need.

[ksilebo]

There really is no need more than what the instruction booklet that comes with the iPod and a google/Apple KB search for everything else.

If all of that confuses you, you probably should stick to a discman, sans MP3 support.

I have problems justifying books anymore when a search online yields information faster and usually more accurate than a book ever could. So if some kind of information dark age ever did come about, and there was no Internet, I ask that someone put me out of my misery...