Secrets of the Ipod

Everyone loves the iPod (though for a lot of us it's a fairly abstract love, given the gizmo's sticker price). In Secrets of the iPod, Christopher Breen--you may know him from TechTV--does a brain-dump on the latest version of the iPod. His coverage is complete, easy to read, and clearly reflects the personal experience of a man who likes to be able to listen to Monkees tunes wherever he goes. You're sure to learn a lot about your iPod--or deepen your wish to have one--by reading this book.

It's possible to criticize this book for explaining the obvious: No one really needs a tutorial on how to download music from the iTunes store, which was carefully set up to be easy to figure out. On the other hand, such documentation--which may be needed for the sake of completeness--takes up little space next to the many pages devoted to relatively obscure features. Readers get the complete run-down on using their portable music players as spare hard disks, and as contact-management utilities. There's also lots of coverage of third-party hardware and software that's sprung up to unlock additional iPod capabilities. --David Wall

Topics covered: How to use the Apple iPod, iTunes, the iTunes Music Store, and the various hacks that have grown up around the iPod. There's good coverage on hooking the iPod to a Microsoft Windows machine, and some troubleshooting tricks.