Wallace Wang, a My New Mac and My New iPhone bestseller for No Starch Press, has written a new book detailing everything you need to know about the iPad in a book called “My New iPad: A User’s Guide.” No Starch Press provided a reviewer copy of “My New iPad: A User’s Guide” for this review.
“My New iPad – A User’s Guide” includes seven chapters including: basic training; personalize your iPad; connect to the Internet; share data with your iPad; video, music and electronic books; getting organized and additional tips. Each chapter is small and comes in easily consumable chunks of information that can instantly help new users complete a certain task with easy-to-follow step-by-step instructions.
The first chapter called “Basic Training” teaches you how to turn the iPad on and off, what the various buttons and slides do, and how to use and customize the virtual keyboard. Apple changed the screen location lock since the book was published, so the information has changed since the publication date, resulting in incorrect information.
“Customizing your iPad” is the second chapter that details how to customize your home screen, set the date and time, restore and reset your iPad, and install and uninstall iPad applications.
The third chapter called “How to access the Internet” shows how to use the email client and the web browser called Safari, including intermediate information such as how to use bookmarks and how to fill out forms automatically with Safari.
If you don’t know how to transfer content to your iPad, Chapter Four is perfect for you. “Share data with your iPad” shows you how to sync with iTunes to transfer media such as photos, movies, TV shows, and even podcasts. The chapter goes on to show the steps to sync your iTunes University e-books, audio books, contacts, appointments, mail, notes, bookmarks, and even courses. The book is light on how to actually configure Yahoo! or Google services with your iPad.
The next chapter focuses on consuming content on the iPad and is titled “Video, Music, and E-books.” This chapter shows you how to view your photos to listen to your music and watch YouTube videos.
Chapter six focuses on how to use the iPad to stay organized using the included iPad applications and is called “Getting Organized.”
Finally, the last chapter called “Additional Tips” provides some additional miscellaneous tips, including how to update iOS or use foreign languages. This last chapter also includes a section called “Best iPad Apps” that includes some good but outdated apps. To keep up with the best iPad apps, you need to keep an eye out for articles that are continually updated, such as the Gizmos for Geeks Favorite iPad Apps monthly updated list.
I started and finished “My New iPad: A User’s Guide” in one afternoon. The book is aimed at new users of not only the iPad device, but also Apple’s iOS devices, including iPod Touch and iPhones, and definitely not advanced iOS users. For example, this book would be great for my parents as they have never used an iOS device, but I found the book in a simplistic way to really get involved.