Hands-On Book Review--iPod & iTunes: The Missing Manual, Second Edition, by J. D. Biersdorfer

. The second edition of this excellent book was recently published. It is totally up to date, including ten pages of information on Apple's brand new iPod mini.

iPod & iTunes has 359 pages divided into the front pages, an introduction, 16 chapters and two appendices. Whoa? There's that much to know about the iPod, iPod mini and iTunes? Surprisingly, the answer is yes.

The introduction covers digital music, all iPod generations including the new mini, the differences between the Mac and Wintel versions and the needed companion computer hardware. The first two chapters cover the iPods themselves while the next four cover the software, including the iPod's, iTunes for Mac and Windows, MusicMatch Jukebox for Windows and the iTunes Music Store. The next five chapters cover the typical non-music capabilities of the iPod including: contacts, calendars, games, ebooks and audiobooks and and an external hard drive plus keeping all in sync with iSync. The final five chapters are devoted to what the author calls "Extreme iPodding", i.e. lots of other things that the iPod can do using third party applications, hacks and hardware--chapter 15 is on troubleshooting with 36 pages. Appendix A covers the mechanical details of iTunes, menu by menu, in 14 pages and Appendix B does the same in eleven pages for MusicMatch Jukebox Plus. Finally, there is a nine-page index.

We read the book cover-to-cover, although we admit to lightly skimming much of the simple material since we are a long-time iPod and iTunes user. The book is very well written. It's style is clear and easy to read, especially for a "manual." A lot of the instructions are in the form of a figure with a set of steps to follow.

We learned a lot of interesting details including: the many digital audio formats, how to tell a Mac iPod from Windows iPod, that a Mac can use both the Mac and Windows formatted iPods but a Wintel computer can not and which iPod models can be used as startup drives with which versions of Mac OS 9 and X. The book includes easily-followed directions on how to make an iPod into a Mac OS 9 or Mac OS X startup drive, including doing so with Mac OS X 10.2 and 10.3 which is not so easy. Chapter 13 "Hot Hacks and Cool Tools" and Chapter 15 "Troubleshooting" are particularly useful to the initiated and unintiated.

Yes, there's a lot to know about iPods and iTunes, a lot more than we thought. We think everyone who uses both will find the book interesting to read and a valuable addition to their library. [iPod & iTunes: The Missing Manual, Second Edition, February 2004, by J. D. Biersdorfer, Pogue Press/O'Reilly, $24.95 ($17.47 on Amazon.com)]