I got this book on the Amazon Vine reviewer program, so I got it for free. Which is good, because a $25, I am not sure that you can say it is worthwhile. I also got the book because my mother just got an iPad 2 (now that the 3 has come out, the 2's are cheaper) and this means I can give the book to her and she can use it before calling me.

Where does this book go wrong? Too many colored fonts is one thing. And then too many cutsey graphics. Why all the blue boxes behind important information with a stylized white line that bleeds out some of the text?

The main problem that the author who I think has his template for the ipad and updates a few lines when a new one is released, is that of timing. I have an iPad 2 and there is nothing here that I can not do, even though the book is for the 3. So the book is really written to the iOS. And that is about to change in a few short months. (3?)

That the author had to write the book after the hardware came out, means we should have seen this book ASAP when the iPad was first released. Instead it is coming out for reviews now in July? (Or that it only has 3 reviews and has sparked the need for more reviews)

In any event the book is good for everything that you get on the iPad. But what else. Even a Dummies book will have 10 apps recommended to make your iPad experience better. The aurhor does not speak to all the things to make the tablet that much more powerful.

The Apple Store geniuses won't tell you of any great App that can make your iPad so powerful that it blows things away, like AirVideo. an App that means that you can have video on your home drives and your iPad can stream that content (terrabytes of movies) anywhere there is wi-fi. Ask an Apple Genius on Apple's sanctified ground and since Apple doesn't sell it, (2.99) they tell you to download movies into iTunes (taking double space on your hard drive) and then downloading from there onto your iPad, taking valuable memory. (Not a plug. I don't have anything to do beyond being a user. But I put all my DVD collection on my Mac and was able to watch movies in the lobby of my hotel in Chicago for free with the movies on my hard dirve in California.)

This is the perfect book to cite 10, 20, even 50 invaluable apps that make the iPad transcend. To take beginners to a level that the Geniuses of Apple should. And for $25 it should. As a Trade Paperback, $15 is probably a price point for such a resource.

The redeeming feature is that you would want a real book in your hand to guide you on the use of the iPad instead of an eBook which you would have to leave the iBooks app to go test or configure your iPad and then return to reading. (Wait, I don't think we discussed how to have many programs open at once and how to switch between them easily except for two paragraphs on the subject. Author McFedries maybe it's time to write a chapter about that, since you don't deal with that in depth and this is a very useful feature.) ( )