All kinds of readers, from complete computer newbies to Apple aficionados, will find useful material in this book. On the other hand, hackers looking to set up sophisticated attacks may not find the explicit details they are looking for.

The book is targeted at owners of Apple products who wish to enhance the security of their systems. The nature of the audience defines the thrust of the book. For example, it is not surprising to find a section describing the nature of random access memory (RAM) using an analogy of desk drawers and filing cabinets. It is a big step to go from that level of simplification to a discussion of the reverse-engineering of assembler code from memory dumps. The broad range of experience that the author has targeted means that different readers will derive differing value from different sections.

The book is well conceived, and achieves its purpose quite well in spite of some fundamental language mistakes that should have been picked up at the proofreading stage. Examples are incorrect apostrophe use (it’s instead of its) and number disagreement.

Physically, the book is light enough to be easily portable, and will not take up too much space on a bookshelf. At around 230 pages, it is long enough to cover the material adequately. Footnotes are used sparingly, and the illustrations and tables are relevant and useful. The comprehensive index spans seven pages and appears accurate.

In summary, I can recommend the book to both new and experienced owners of Apple products. Its treatment of the origin and development of the Apple operating systems would be interesting to a broader audience.

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