I remember it like it was yesterday, a call from my book editor….
“So you heard about this iPod thing that Apple’s doing?”
“Uh huh.”
“Think there’s a book in it?”
“Jeez, I dunno. I mean, it’s just a music player, right? How much could there be to say about it?”
“Yeah, yeah, that’s what the geeks will say, but there may be more there than we think. Take a look.”
I did, and man was he right. The iPod has created not only a multimillion-dollar market for accessories but has spawned both books and websites devoted to its secrets and the culture that’s grown up around it.
One such website is this very Playlist. Since its launch 18 months ago, digital music experts including Dan Frakes, Jim Heid, Kirk McElhearn, Jonathan Seff, Matt Vance, and yours truly have explored every aspect of the iPod and iTunes—from troubleshooting to the best iPod accessories to podcasting to media conversion to video blogging to playlist management to music encoding to… well, it just goes on and on and on.
There’s some great stuff here but, as with any website, finding it all can take time. It’s for that reason (and, okay, to make a little money too) that the editors of our sister publication, Macworld , have taken the best of Playlist, polished and updated it, and released it as the Macworld iPod and iTunes Superguide. Available in three formats—a $12.95 PDF guide, a $24.99 printed book, or a $15 CD-ROM —you get 88, ad-free pages of pure content.
I think you’ll like it but don’t take my word for it, try before you buy. Check out the free 16-page sample and see what you think.