Peachpit Press has announced that it will publish a series of Apple-authorized books about Mac OS X v10.4 “Tiger,” which Apple expects to ship by the end of June. The first two titles in the series, Robin Williams’ “Mac OS X Tiger” (US$29.99) and Scott Kelby’s “Getting Started with Mac OS X Tiger” ($29.99), will ship in February and April, respectively. The former covers what’s new in Tiger and how to use such features as Dashboard, Spotlight, the Safari RSS browser and others. The latter takes a task-based approach, guiding readers through everything new they’re likely to encounter when they first use Tiger, from using the mouse and getting on the Internet to starting iChat sessions and searching for files with Spotlight.
Upcoming books in the series include Kelby’s “Mac OS X Tiger Killer Tips” ($29.99), Williams’ “The Little Mac Book: Tiger Edition” ($14.99), Maria Langer’s “Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger: Visual QuickStart Guide” ($24.99), Dori Smith’s “Dashboard Widgets for Mac OS X Tiger: Visual QuickStart Guide” ($21.99), Adam Engst, Tonya Engst, Joe Kissell, Kirk McElhearn and Matt Neuburg’s “Take Control of Tiger” ($29.99), Robin Williams and John Tollett’s “The Robin Williams Mac OS X Book, Tiger Edition” ($29.99) and Ted Landau’s “Mac OS X Help Line, Tiger Edition” ($49.99). Peachpit expects to begin publishing them next month and continue through August.
The publisher is also giving away free sneak previews of Jim Heid’s upcoming book, “The Macintosh iLife ’05” ($34.99), at its Macworld Conference & Expo San Francisco booth. Due in March, the guide will cover the new versions of the multimedia applications contained in Apple’s suite, which was introduced during Steve Jobs’ Tuesday morning keynote. The “First Look: iLife ’05” excerpt features tips for iPhoto 5, iMovie HD, iDVD 5 and GarageBand 2, as well as Apple’s new Jam Pack 4: Symphony Orchestra for use with GarageBand.