There are lots of great books about the iPhone available. Want a great introductory guide? David Pogue’s iPhone: The Missing Manual
is excellent. Want to go to the next level and get expert advice on troubleshooting? Then you’ll love Ted Landau’s Take Control of your iPhone. But what if you really want to push your iPhone to the max? There is no better choice than Andy Ihntako’s iPhone Fully Loaded (2d ed.)
The theme of this book is simple — how much useful and amazing stuff can you get into your iPhone, even if you need to think a little outside of the box to do so. He discusses innovative uses of smart playlists so that your iPhone always has fresh music and videos and you have the illusion of having much more space on your iPhone. He devotes several chapters to getting video on your iPhone, whether that video is on TV, DVD, an online service like YouTube or even your old home movies on VHS. Ihnatko loves comics, so there is a chapter on getting comics on your iPhone. There are several chapters devoted to the best ways to get news and other information from the Internet on your iPhone. Many attorneys will be interested in his discussion of different ways to get documents on your iPhone. By the time you finish reading this book, you brain will be overflowing with ideas of neat new things that you can do with your iPhone, and you will forever feel just a little guilty when you see some free space on your iPhone because you will be thinking of something else that you can add.
Just based on the book’s content alone, I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to move to the next level with their iPhone. But what really makes this book a joy to read is Ihnatko’s writing style. A writer of the Wikipedia entry on Ihnatko called it a boisterous writing style, seasoned with references to US pop culture, P. G. Wodehouse, comic books, cartoons, and science fiction. He’s also been called a “comedian masquerading as a tech writer.” I’ll just say that he is smart and funny, my two favorite characteristics in any writer. If you are not already familiar with his writing style, then take a pause from this review and check out any of Ihnatko’s weekly technology columns in the Chicago Sun Times, or read any of the entries in his blog Andy Ihnatko’s Celestial Waste of Bandwidth, or listen to any of his weekly appearances on the MacBreak Weekly podcast. I’ll wait.
[whistles, shuffles feet…]
Back? Good. See what I mean? It is just good fun to read or listen to Ihnatko. So even if he had written a book about the weather in northern Alaska, I’d still probably want to read it. When you combine his great writing style with great content, you get the rare technology book that is actually a page turner.
Here’s one more reason I love this book: it is very well produced. Every page is full color, the book includes great iPhone screen shots and illustrations, the book is packed with sidebar “Tidbit” items that are often insightful, humorous, or both, and the book is well organized with a useful index that makes it easy to go back and find something.
I only have one complaint about this book, and it is a complaint about any book that is on a printed page but especially books about cutting edge technology: the book can get outdated. For example, the book has great tips on using RSS feeds to listen to podcasts that you didn’t sync to your iPhone, but now you don’t need to worry about that tip because with software update 2.2, you can download podcasts directly to the iPhone. Ihnatko has a chapter on reading books on the iPhone, but obviously it doesn’t discuss the Kindle for iPhone app that Amazon released last week. Indeed, this is the second edition of this book, released December 3, 2008, and I suspect that Ihnatko finished writing it in October or early November of 2008. Having said that, here we are in March of 2009 and I still find myself strongly recommending this book because virtually all of the content remains relevant and even the few dated parts are still informative and fun to read.
Because you are reading this website, I already know that you are someone who wants to learn how to get the most out of an iPhone, and that puts you in the target demographic for this book. It is less than $14 on Amazon, which would be money well spent for either the content or the humor — it is a bargain to get both. So give yourself a little gift and pick up a copy of the book today. I’ll end with a few pictures of Andy Ihnatko from his Flickr page that seem to capture his spirit:
Click here to get Andy Ihnatko’s iPhone Fully Loaded from Amazon.