OS X Yosemite: The Missing Manual (Missing Manuals) 1st Edition

I am a long time dedicated Apple fanboy and have used nothing but Mac since 1984. But I am increasingly alarmed by the direction of Mac OS X, which reminds me more and more of .. I can barely get the word out .. Microsoft. Apple is now such a big company, led not by a computer visionary but a corporate Nice Guy, that their decisions are driven by competition with themselves, addiction to the Next New Thing, and meeting unrealistic expectations for perpetual innovation. They have lost sight of limiting themselves to advances in design and functionality under the philosophy of elegant simplicity which guided Mac in the early years. Each year's big announcement now invariably piles new features, many of which no one turns out to want or need (when was the last time you used Launchpad? Mission Control? Front Row?) but nevertheless complicate and confound the OS X code and inevitably lead to bugs and conflicts. Now in Yosemite we have Continuity, Handoff, AirDrop, etc. Not only I am unlikely to use all this but it would be a miracle if it all worked perfectly. I can see cracks. Images are now handled differently in Yosemite; not better, just differently, and I have had to relearn for no good reason. This is not progress, it's clutter, and I am not the only one who is concerned. Sophisticated observers are blogging about the decline in software quality from Apple. If you don't recognize the intense marketing pressure behind this, just imagine if Apple next year were to announce that in the next OS update "Time for housecleaning. We are adding no new features but eliminating fails, tightening the code and making it bug-free and faster, period." Wall Street would have a heart attack. Let's face it fanboys, Apple has now officially fallen into the trap of changing things for the sake of changing them. It's called Feature Bloat, and it's sad.The complexity and churn of OS X today makes it all the more important to have a good guidebook. The days are gone when Apple could pride itself on making a computer which was so intuitive it did not require any training or instructions. But they still maintain the conceit, and so have outsourced this increasingly critical function onto the narrow shoulders of a non-employee, David Pogue, a former stage magician. Fortunately, Pogue does this job with talent and dedication. He succeeds very well in explaining intricacies and anticipating most questions. To quickly test the new edition, I flipped to the index to search for something which has bothered me lately. My iMac is encrypted through Filevault, so if North Koreans break into my house to steal my grandmother's Indian pudding recipe, they're not going to be able to read it on my hard drive (as long as I'm logged out). But if they are clever enough to leave the computer behind and just steal my Time Machine backup drive instead? My friends, that's all in plain text!! This is a significant Apple oversight. Next thing I know, counterfeit Indian pudding floods the black market. Sure enough, David has a nice, clear one page discussion of this issue and what to do about it; all I had to do was look up the word "encryption" in the index. Very good. If there is one chapter I would propose adding to the book, it would be more about Terminal and the UNIX command line interface. This is not just for UNIX geeks; every long term Mac user needs to use this from time to time and a few basics should be covered.I appreciate Pogue, his skill at explanation, and his long hours typing. But Dave, as I think you must know, the entirety of OS 10 has become a house of cards about to collapse under its own weight. Could you would please convince your contacts at Apple that it's time to slash the OS code by 25%, sweep out failed ideas and restore simplicity as a guiding principle? Steve Jobs believed that less is more. Then maybe your next edition of the Missing Manual won't need to be 856 pages long. That magic trick would be a service to us all.Note added March 2015: The following appeared recently on macrumor concerning the next OS X update: "Little is known about Apple's next operating system update at this early point in time, but recent rumors have suggested that it will be a "Snow Leopard" type of update that focuses primarily on stability and optimization improvements rather than new features or a new design.. " Exactly!

There are too many "unforced" errors made. OS X's latest software revisions may be too many and too complex to attempt to crank out such a manual in the time taken to publish it. Example: Page 636, Figure 17-8 "The Headquarters of iCloud's features... ... You'll find a nearly identical panel ..." This lead-in invites the reader to look at a diagram with the features and the order in which they appear; there is no suggestion that the order of the features may vary in Yosemite. Nevertheless, the order of Features depicted in Figure 17-8 is: "iCloud Drive, Photos, Mail, Contacts, Calendars, Reminders and Notes." The order appearing on my MacPro running OS X 10.10.2 is different: "iCloud Drive, Photos, Mail, Contacts, Calendars, Reminders, Safari, Notes." Why not admit (as is done in Figure 17-8 concerning IOS devices) that the iCloud features list may be a little different in some versions of Yosemite? A further error, at the top of page 637, is both unclear and perhaps wrong. There are two instances of "Options" depicted in Figure 17-8, but this is not explained in the prose. In fact this comment applies to the first instance of "Options." When you follow the instructions to find a list of apps that permit other iCloud members to find you..." Nothing appears in the next window. There is likely a prerequisite to finding such a "list of apps" that was omitted.This review has an add-on comment that earned one final check-out before submission: Two Issues exist related to "The Missing CD" described on the last page of the book -- this page is not numbered and faces the Manual's back cover. Guidance for manual readers about the 'missing CD"' is incomplete. There is non-trivial navigation necessary to get from the cited webpage [missingmanuals.com] to a link that delivers a reader's browser to a website where one can access OS X Yosemite "The Missing CD." Guidance on the 'manual's 'last page' directs "click the Missing CD icon". To begin with, there is no such icon; there is, however, a prose link: "Missing CD-ROM" which ultimately navigates to the material promised. Worrisome, materials included for OS X Yosemite manual have not been fully scrubbed of out-of-date information that pertains to earlier Mac OS X software. The last entry listed is for the OS X Yosemite Manual's Appendix C (covering the Windows-to-Mac Dictionary). Appendix C includes a link to VersionTracker. This resource is no-longer available and the link is, of course non-functioning. This offers one final example of how much detailed material this Yosemite Manual needed to cover, revise and delete.

I'm a "Windows guy" and wanted to learn OS X... and I might as well learn about the latest release, Yosemite (10.10) at the time of this review.I was instantly impressed with the heft and thickness of this book. I opened it and started reading and there is A LOT of information in this book. It goes into a good amount of detail and is heavy on all the different ways you can go about doing the same thing, which includes a lot of information about keyboard shortcuts and accessing the same function from different menus.I'd say there is also a lot of additional information & tips that you probably would never have known or figured out if you hadn't read it in the book. I also like that the author spices it up once in awhile with some humor.I have encountered a few issues, like screenshots not being updated (and there are A LOT of screenshots), but it's not too bad. I do wish the screenshots were in color but that may be asking too much for such a large book that really isn't a lot of money for what you get.If you are looking for a book that will give you an overview of OS X in a short time, then this may not be the book for you as it goes in to a lot of detail and is almost 900 pages... but if you want something more in-depth, thorough, and which gives you tons of keyboard shortcuts, then I would highly recommend this book.

The last edition of this manual that I bought was in 2007 – for OS Leopard. It’s well worth getting an update after that length of time since there is so much that has changed, whilst you will have a hard job finding another source of information for Yosemite that is as comprehensive and clearly written as this one.One downside – of a relatively minor nature – is that there is quite a sprinkling of errata throughout the book, such as incorrect references to pages and non–existent figures. These can be viewed on the publisher’s website.

The Missing Manual series of books has long been a firm favourite of mine and I have about 2 dozen of them in my home library. Dummies, Que & Cisco are some of my other favourite publishers. I recently updated 3 of my MacBook Pro laptops to Apple's latest operating system: Yosemite. As always, I tend to seek out suitable books on the appropriate subject and 'The Missing Manual' series is high on my list of 'MUST HAVE' books. What's more, they are comparatively cheap and easy to find due to their popularity.

It arrived rather later than I had expected but it was well worth the wait: absolutely first class, exceeding very highest expectations. I just cannot believe the wonderful condition for a "used book" with only the merest bruise to the spline, which would have to be looked for to be found.

I could not initially operate an iMac without it, there is at present no alternative source of this direct information for those setting up a desktop iMac.This book was aware of Apple products like "Photos" which came out later than the latest iMac with only "iPhoto" supplied.

Well up to the usual standard. Pleasant surprise when I found out that the selling price was 25% lower that the pre-publication one.I have earlier Missing Manuals for Mountain Lion and Mavericks. This is at least as user-friendly as them.