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The book is easy to read, easy to find answers and gives step by step instructions how to use the phone and its' various apps. She was correct. A friend of mine told me that when she first bought her IPhone that this book was very informative and helpful. So, when I purchased my IPhone I followed her suggestion.
The iPhone 3GS is a marvelous. I figured I'd rather own a "shop manual" to point me in the right direction.This book far exceeded my expectations. device (if I had predicted its features to you just ten years ago you'd have laughed). But it's in that little box all by its lonesome: there's scant documentation.
Can you fall in love with a book. I thought I'd get a book written about the original iPhone, with a couple of chapters tacked on to explore the 3GS. a full-color book with detailed drawings and step-by-step instructions for using all the iPhone 3GS features it documents. This one certainly has made my iPhone experience richer and less painful. This is a gold mine of useful information, presented in a straightforward, logical manner. almost a miraculous.
Instead I got a heavyweight. A must-have. Out of the box it can do darn near anything. The salesman told me it's done that way on purpose: the good folks at Apple want you to play around with it, to go on the web to get a good look "under the hood," to experiment.
If you give an iPhone as a gift, give this book too. The little notes and tips that are done in reversed type are hard to read, but that is a minor gripe. This book contains all the essential information for the new users. It is well laid out and the index is complete.
So I drove over there, only to find that they had this book instead. Maybe $9.99. Pogue seems to go into more detail, have more tips and tricks, and also (for my mind at least) does a better job of explaining the theory behind the programming so that I can understand holistically rather than memorized discrete tricks.Bottom line, I don't think The Portable Genius is worth the money. It is OK but not great. I use this book to look up things when I get stuck. So I bought it anyway.
Otherwise, just read the how to online. I bought this book kind of by mistake. I went to a book chain looking for David Pogue's book on the iphone 3GS in the Missing Manual series. And I couldn't easily find what I needed.
But it lacked a really intense index. It had what you would expect, chapters devoted to different features. I had to look it up online. If you are a book learner, order The Missing Manual.
I really enjoyed Pogue's Missing Manual book on the Mac OS X (liked it better than the Dummies, I own both) and also the Missing Manual on iPhoto. I just bought my iphone so I was in a post purchase high and really wanted something to read. Maybe it's in there somewhere, but if I can't easily find the answer, what's the point of buying the book. The location I visited didn't have Pogue's book, but they called another location that did.
For example, I couldn't find how to lock the iphone screen with this book. The Portable Genius book is just OK. I wish I had not. In retrospect I should have ordered Pogue's from Amazon and researched the phone on the web.
It's great if you don't feel like messing around with your phone for 10 minutes, though it will take you 45 to read the book. My review title speaks for itself.
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