Wallace Wang, 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’s 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 bits 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 iPad on and off, what the various buttons and sliders do, and how to use and customize the virtual keyboard. Apple changed the Lock Screen Location 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 apps.
The third chapter called “Connecting to the Internet” shows how to use the email client and the web browser called Safari, and includes intermediate information, such as how to use bookmarks and how to fill in forms automatically with Safari.
If you don’t know how to transfer content to your iPad, chapter four is perfect for you. “Sharing Data with Your iPad” shows you how to sync with iTunes to transfer media like photos, movies, TV shows, and even podcasts. The chapter goes on to show the steps to sync your iTunes eBooks, Audiobooks, Contacts, Appointments, Mail, Notes, Bookmarks, and even college courses. The book is clear on how to set up Yahoo! or Google services with your iPad though.
The next chapter focuses on content consumption on the iPad and is titled “Video, Music, and eBooks.” This chapter shows you how to view his photos to listen to his music to watch YouTube videos.
Chapter six focuses on how to use iPad to stay organized using the included iPad apps and is called “Getting Organized.”
Finally, the last chapter called “Additional Tips” provides some additional miscellaneous tips including how to update the iOS or use foreign languages. This last chapter also includes a section called “Best iPad Apps” which includes some good apps but is dated. To keep up with the best iPad apps, keep an eye out for continually updated articles like Gizmos for Geeks’ monthly updated list of favorite iPad apps.
I started and finished “My New iPad: User Guide” in one afternoon. The book is aimed at new users of not only the iPad device, but also Apple iOS devices, including the iPod Touch and iPhone, and definitely not advanced iOS users. For example, this book would be ideal for my parents as they have never used an iOS device, but I found the book too simplistic to really engage.
