The iPod Book
Ever see one of those coffee table books on clearance at the bookstore? The book is stunning, but once you see the pictures, you’re like “so what? Where’s the beef”? That’s this book. All show no substance. There are lots of pictures but the problem is a picture isn’t worth a thousand words, otherwise why would you need a manual? A manual needs words to explain concepts!
This book appears to be designed for novice iPod users trying to expand their knowledge, and it fails miserably.
I found the book disorganized; it reminded me of a bad PowerPoint presentation. A beginner’s book should have narratives walking people through the steps and use pictures to explain those steps in a logical order. Each concept only had one picture to describe the process, even if it was a multistep function. For example, on the section “Getting music in your iPod” the picture to explain the concept was a iPod docked.
This book tries to be all things to all people. Kelby starts by telling you how how to connect your iPod and leaves you with a chapter on Podcasting. I doubt if a new user will move through the concepts this quickly. Every topic was given one page, some concepts need multipages and some only need a half. An entire page was devoted to the fact the iPod doesn’t have an off button.
Overall, this book did a poor job of explaining technical concepts to novice iPod users and was too simplistic for advanced users. The pictures didn’t explain the concepts and the prose didn’t explain things well either. Kelby also has a strange sense of humor that got in the way of his explanations and gave too many of his personal opinions rather than sticking to the facts. I didn’t need to learn about his musical tastes or his other projects… I just wanted to learn how to use of my iPod.
Pros: Visually appealing, will look nice in your collection and impress your neighbors.
Cons: Looks aren’t everything, style without substance.
1 out of 5 dog cows
