Pogue Press -- O'Reilly The Missing Manuals -- the books that should have been in the box.

Click here to find YOUR Missing Manual
Arrow Home
Arrow Library
Full list of all Missing Manuals
Arrow Missing CD-ROMs ** PLEASE DESCRIBE THIS IMAGE **
Free/Shareware Programs

Arrow Send us your Feedback
Write reviews, submit errata, ask questions
Arrow Sign up for our Newsletter
Arrow Screencasts
Arrow For Starters Series
Arrow Write for Us
Arrow About Missing Manuals
Arrow News Archive
Arrow Blogs
Arrow Press Releases

Arrow David Pogue's NYTimes Column
Arrow David Pogue's NYTimes Blog
Arrow David Pogue's Home Page

Arrow O'Reilly Website

Download Our 2008 Catalog

Download Our 2008 Catalog (1.4MB PDF)



You Versus Your Gadgets: July 2007 Archives

Dudes, don't get me wrong: I love my iPhone. But this thing's definitely got a few signs of version-one-point-oh-itis. Exhibit A: Every time I (and apparently lots of others) try to use the phone's iPod program while browsing the Web, the iPod crashes. On the iPhone crashing simply means that the music stops. You've got to then finger click your way back to iPod to re-start the music...until it happens again about a minute later. Kinda takes the fun out of showing off your new gadget to all the (ok, both) Zune owners you know.

One poster to the Apple discussion forums advised powering the phone on and off (hold down the Sleep/Wake switch on the top of the phone for three seconds). I tried this to no avail. The prevailing opinion out there in Fix It Land seems to be that this bug will only (hopefully?) be fixed upon the release of Apple's first iPhone software update. Let's hope that comes soon.

I'll be the first to admit: my experience with first generation Apple products is they tend to be buggy.

Reading Books on the iPhone

| | Comments (15) | TrackBacks (2)

How easy is it to read long passages of text on the iPhone? That's a question I've been wanting to answer since the Holy Phone was announced this past January. I've long had a reading-related fantasy (trust me, this won't get dirty) that I could use the iPhone as a kind of auxiliary monitor. Stuff a few software-related how-to doc's onto the phone, and then perform the actual tasks on my main monitor. I don't know about you, but when it comes to reading documentation online I always end up printing it out since I can't stand switching back and forth between, say, Photoshop Elements and the info onscreen that's telling me how to use the histogram. Once I got my hands on an actual iPhone and saw firsthand the jaw-dropping clarity of its 3.5 inch 160 dpi screen, I couldn't wait to run a few tests.

I took a look at three different kinds of content: a book from O'Reilly's Safari online reading library, a Web site whose layout appeared especially readable on the iPhone, and a PDF.

The verdict? iPhone-friendly Web sites are the clear winner. Safari books take second place and are readable for about 10 pages or so at time. PDFs are as lame as ever on the small screen. Pictures, comments, and some suggestions after the jump.



 © 2008, O'Reilly Media, Inc. | (707) 827-7000 / (800) 998-9938