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iPad The Missing Manual?

Alchematron

Alchematron

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jan 22, 2007
1,012
24
Maui Hawaii
Do you plan to buy this book?

Or no the stock manual is sufficient?

Due June 1st

http://oreilly.com/catalog/0636920010142

Description

How can you harness the tremendous potential of Apple's iPad? With this book, you'll quickly learn how to use each feature and application of the iPad to browse online, read, play games, work, and manage your music, video, and photo files. iPad: The Missing Manual offers clear step-by-step instructions, undocumented shortcuts, workarounds, and lots of practical, time-saving advice.

Apple's iPad is the perfect personal media center. It lets you search the Web with WiFi, helps you stay in touch with its built-in email application, and allows you to read books, magazines, and newspapers in full color. You can also play games, listen to music, watch videos, view photos, and create documents, layouts, and slideshows with iPad's iWork suite.

With iPad: The Missing Manual, learning how to use this new device is a snap. The clear step-by-step instructions, undocumented shortcuts, workarounds, and lots of practical timesaving advice help you learn each feature and application - presented with the renowned Missing Manual wit and easy-to-read format.

• Learn how to shop in the iPad's integrated, custom-designed bookstore
• Use its full-color, large-screen eBook and ePeriodical reader
• Create documents, spreadsheets, and presentations with the iWork "lite" productivity suite
• Use iTunes to organize and manage media files
• Get connected to the Web with built-in WiFi and the Safari browser
• Orient yourself with the iPad's GPS and map technologies
• Locate and download custom-built games
• Use the iPad's built in email, calendar, and contact applications
• Run any and all iPhone apps on the iPad

ipadxd.jpg
 
For now, this just seems like a stupid idea to me.
Nobody knows yet what will "be in the box", and so to try and hazard a guess at what people are going to need to know, let alone without the writers having used the device sufficiently yet, is a little silly I believe.

EDIT: Oops. Just noticed that it has a June release date, which means by the time of release (of the book) they can brush up on what's been omitted, and any common requests people have or mistakes they are making. My bad.
 
I had the iPhone version of this book when it was first introduced. I found it to be generally not that informative. If you mess around with your ipad you should be able to learn everything this book has to offer. It may be a good idea for a less technological adept person, but i doubt anyone posting on an iPad forum is going to fall under that category.
 
IMO, if you need a book to figure out the iPad, the iPad is probably not for you. At least that's true for me and my iPhone.
 
This manual will likely be either delayed or useless within weeks of this print date as it is very likely that iPhone OS 4.0 will be released this summer with many new features. Many people expect multitasking in some limited form among other major overhauls, and other smaller additions like a unified inbox and perhaps the addition of some more built-in apps.
 
scottness said:
IMO, if you need a book to figure out the iPad, the iPad is probably not for you. At least that's true for me and my iPhone.
Click to expand...

Absolutely. I thought Apple's aim was to give products a UI so intuitive, that hardly any documentation is needed, save perhaps for a quick tips aide memoir.
 
Gymgenius said:
Absolutely. I thought Apple's aim was to give products a UI so intuitive, that hardly any documentation is needed, save perhaps for a quick tips aide memoir.
Click to expand...

You'd be surprised how dumb some people are when it comes to the iPhone. I know people who don't even know how to install updates for their apps or setup email. I know a girl who has MobileMe but didn't know that it does anything other than email. Or that the calculator rotates, or that you can sync Google calendars onto it. Or half a million other things. Actually, now that I come to think about it, there are lots of little settings that do some cool things that most people would find useful but never go into. Maybe I should write an iPad book. I can start now since I have an iPad simulator. People love buying guides.
 
macduke said:
People love buying guides.
Click to expand...

And there is some vulture eagerly willing to make a buck off of them. I'll bet most people who feel compeleed to buy this book, once having read it, will still have to have someone else SHOW them how to do things.
 
Learning how to use your device like an iPad without using any iPad manuals is much harder to do because you have to familiarize all the key features and its functions, in order to operate the gadget very well. I think with the use of the iPad manual is such an ideal thing that we must have to use.
 
Leronony said:
Learning how to use your device like an iPad without using any iPad manuals is much harder to do because you have to familiarize all the key features and its functions, in order to operate the gadget very well. I think with the use of the iPad manual is such an ideal thing that we must have to use.
Click to expand...

A bit nemocratic, don't you think, since this thread is four years old?
 
Necromancy or not, the "family tech support" calls have stopped after giving the parents this book recently. Which rates it two big thumbs up in my book.
 
Leronony said:
Learning how to use your device like an iPad without using any iPad manuals is much harder to do because you have to familiarize all the key features and its functions, in order to operate the gadget very well. I think with the use of the iPad manual is such an ideal thing that we must have to use.
Click to expand...

When my daughter was 2 she picked it up quite easily.
 
My mother (who has no clue how to use a computer) figured out the iPad in 10 minutes. I don't see why anyone would need a guide…
 
There are plenty of neat things one can do on the iPad that aren't necessarily obvious and that a guide can be helpful for. Use four fingers to swipe to the left to go back to a previous application. Do the same gesture upwards to get the task switcher. Bring all five fingers together to go back to the home screen. And I don't think managing media files without a file system is necessarily intuitive for everybody.
 
Just adding my 2 cents here. I found this thread because I read about a book called
"OS X Mavericks: The Missing Manual". I wanted to see what folks thought of this type of book. Obviously the posters here don't see a need for a Dummies type of book.

I came from the PC world. Just started using a MacBook, have an iPad for about 2 yrs. "just playing around" with the "intuitive" interface just doesn't do it for me. I'm looking for something to get me over the learning hump.

Maybe if an os-x device is your first computer, but unlearning DOS/Win and relearning os-x is not easy (I'm in mid-60's), playing with linux for a few years has helped. My wife it totally lost, not being able to properly create a calendar event on the MacBook.

For iphone/ipad I have muddled through most but still plenty of frustrations, not the least being the inability to get around the sandboxing or getting into the terminal. The limited interoperability across platforms drives me nuts. Fat fingers on a touchscreen forces me to use a stylus. Sorry to rant on, it's not meant to be derogatory. There are good things but you already know that.
 
saberahul said:
My mother (who has no clue how to use a computer) figured out the iPad in 10 minutes. I don't see why anyone would need a guide…
Click to expand...
I've had an iPad Air for 3 months and it's still a great mystery to me...its vastly more complicated and difficult to master than OSX and Mac apps or even Windows 7 because there is no pointing and clicking device, no files and folders, etc. And Apple provides no instructional manuals or videos. So I am looking forward to getting rid of my iPad though I will probably miss it for casual web browsing in bed (that's the only thing I have learned to do with it).
 
kathyricks said:
I've had an iPad Air for 3 months and it's still a great mystery to me...its vastly more complicated and difficult to master than OSX and Mac apps or even Windows 7 because there is no pointing and clicking device, no files and folders, etc. And Apple provides no instructional manuals or videos. So I am looking forward to getting rid of my iPad though I will probably miss it for casual web browsing in bed (that's the only thing I have learned to do with it).
Click to expand...

Surely you jest. If not, then here's your missing manual:
http://manuals.info.apple.com/MANUALS/1000/MA1595/en_US/ipad_user_guide.pdf
 
kathyricks said:
I've had an iPad Air for 3 months and it's still a great mystery to me...its vastly more complicated and difficult to master than OSX and Mac apps or even Windows 7 because there is no pointing and clicking device, no files and folders, etc. And Apple provides no instructional manuals or videos. So I am looking forward to getting rid of my iPad though I will probably miss it for casual web browsing in bed (that's the only thing I have learned to do with it).
Click to expand...

No manual ? Yes there is and above poster shows you how to get it. Seems you didn't bother to ask where it is. Besides, most manuals are located online now days, not just Apple. Saves them money
 
For me, the book was well worth it since it has several nuggets of info that aren't in the iBooks (which I have also). Like how to create slideshows with music in iPhoto and then how to export it to iTunes the right way to then get it to the iPad. Glad I bought it.
 
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