REVIEW: The Little Mac iApps Book - Book Review

Telecomworldwire, Sept 17, 2003 by Darren Ingram

TELECOMWORLDWIRE-17 September 2003-REVIEW: The Little Mac iApps Book(C)1994-2003 M2 COMMUNICATIONS LTD http://www.m2.com

One of the nice things about the freely-bundled applications with the Apple Macintosh OS X operating system is that they are so easy to use. As standard you get a free photo editing and storage tool, chat application, DVD authoring and burning application and MP3 ripper and player as part of the iApps suite. If you subscribe to the .Mac service then you get even more things such as remote disk storage, home page creation and hosting, synchronisation of address books and more.

The applications are essentially easy to use and are intuitive. If you get stuck you can always use the online help. So is there a place for 'The Little Mac iApps Book' which acts as a guide to these services and applications? The answer is quite possibly yes.

Using the experience of this reviewer as a 'Mac Switcher' of about nine months, I quickly and without any real help got to use the core functionality of all of the iApps and found them a breath of fresh air to use compared to many of the PC apps that I had struggled with. I was conscious that I did not know the full feature set but they met my needs. I think, however, that since I could do what I needed within the apps, the process of discovering what else could be done had been taken away as I had not needed to waste time scrolling through menu options, online help screens and more.

At least a one-time read of this book has had me going "hmm, I never knew I could do that" (even though I hadn't sought out to do it) so maybe it has just offered a greater understanding and stronger appreciation of the bundled software which can put comparable titles from other vendors to shame!

Weighing in at over 500 pages you may expect it to be a heavy read but the good index puts pay to that thought. Each product has its own dedicated section with clear signposting and simple instructional language. To add to this ongoing list of plus-points the book even manages to stay flat without having a comb binding or breaking the spine. As anyone who uses instructional manuals while working on their computers will know, this is quite a handy feature!

CONCLUSION: All in all a rather nice book. Despite the trend for computer manufacturers to omit paper documentation maybe this is the sort of book that should be bundled with each OS X system sold (or at least a good sized discount coupon valid both in the US and elsewhere, Apple executives note) so that newcomers to the OS X world can really go to town !

Title: The Little Mac iApps (correct spelling) BookAuthor: John Tollett / Robin WilliamsPublished by: Peachpit PressISBN: 0-321-18747-4Price: GBP16.99 Reviewer: Darren IngramThis book was provided for review by Computer Manuals (http://www.computer-manuals.co.uk).

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