Someone must love you very much. How else to explain the fact that you were given an awesome new iPhone or iPod for the holidays? You must have come out well on the "nice" side of the whole naughty/nice continuum. Congrats!

But now what? You've got this highly advanced device that you've heard so much about -- how are you ever going to get up to speed? Don't worry, we're here to help, with 10 simple activities designed to get you comfortable with your new acquisition. 

1. Protect Yourself

The Little Black Book may not be the most practical iPhone case, but it sure is pretty.

Ooh, shiny! Look at that slick, sleek slab of technology. It'd be a shame if anything happened to it, wouldn't it? That's why the first thing you'll want to do is get yourself some protection. Have a look at our collections of iPhone and iPod touch cases. You can find anything to suit your style and desired armor rating.

Most cases, however, don't cover the screen of your spotless, new device. And though Apple seems to think they're unnecessary, we've found that screen protectors offer serious peace of mind. Worried about screwing up the application? Many malls and electronics stores now offer application services for a nominal fee. But if you'd rather go it alone, we've found that applying a screen in a well-ventilated bathroom with the fan going and the shower running hot can decrease the chances of dust finding its way under your screen protector.

2. Get With the Times

This is the message you want to see.

Now it's time to introduce your iPhone or iPod to your Mac. But wait! Don't start cramming your tunes and videos on there yet. Before you fill your new acquisition to the gills, you'll want to make sure you're running the latest firmware. Select your device in iTunes left column, and on the Summary page, click Check for Update. Current firmware up to date? Great! You're good to move on.

If not, you'll get a message that a new version of the iOS firmware is available, and iTunes will ask if you'd like to install it now. This would be a good idea.

Note that firmware updates can occasionally go awry. If this happens to you, don't panic! Often, just trying again will make everything work the way it's supposed to. If not, try the Download Only option, save the update somewhere safe, and find further information in this support article at Apple.

3. Load it Up!

Yeah, Anthrax and Arlo Guthrie. You have a problem with that?

Now we get to the good stuff. It's time to jam your new device full of media! Chances are you're already familiar with the basic iPod sync process in iTunes, but thanks to the power under the hood of these newfangled devices, you'll find some options you may not have seen before.

Let's start with music. In the Music tab for your device in iTunes, you'll see a load of options for picking what to sync. Now, you can choose to sync your whole library, but chances are pretty good that all your tunes won't fit on all but the biggest iPhones and iPod touches. If you'd like a brand-new musical experience every time you sync, you can check "Automatically fill free space with songs." But most of us will probably want a bit more control. Luckily, you can choose to sync as many playlists, albums, and/or individual artists as you'd like. But that's not all: You can also sync genres, or iTunes' automatically-generated Genius playlists. And you can manually drag any other random songs you like onto your device.

Syncing Photos is a similar process; you can sync everything, or you can sync selected albums, events, or even faces from iPhoto. (And if you don't use iPhoto, you can sync from any folder.) Movies, TV Shows, and Books offer fewer options, but use a similar interface. Go nuts -- but remember to leave a couple gigs free for apps!

4. Keep Your Loved Ones Close

You will actually be able to get much more precision than this. But, you know, stalkers.

Now that you've moved all your precious media over, it's time to take one more precautionary measure. Apple's Find My iPhone program was previously available only to subscribers of the $99-a-year MobileMe service. But in a magnanimous gesture, they recently made the program available to anyone with a device running iOS 4.2. That's you! (You did update your firmware, right?)

Setting it up is easy: Open the Settings app on your device, choose Mail, Contacts, Calendars, tap Add Account, and select MobileMe. Sign in with your Apple ID and wait a few moments for Apple to send a verification e-mail. Follow the steps in the e-mail, then return to the MobileMe setup screen on your device and turn Find My iPhone on. Now you can sign in at me.com and see your device wherever it is. And you can even download a Find My iPhone app to locate an iPhone or iPod (or iPad, for that matter) from another iOS device.

5. App-lify Your Life

Angry Birds has been "hot" in one form or another pretty much since dinosaurs walked the earth.

And now for the really fun part. You've no doubt heard plenty about iOS apps, and with good reason: There are well over a 300,000 apps available as of this writing. How will you ever find the good ones? Fortunately, there's an app for apps. Look for the App Store icon on your home screen. Inside, you'll find some helpful lists: Featured items, Top Sellers, and of course Categories for finding a specific app type.

But we have a feeling there's a few you'll be particularly interested in. As far as we're concerned, no iOS device should be without the official Twitter app, the official Facebook app, Pandora, or Netflix.

There are about 299,996 more apps out there, though, so make sure to hit up our apps pages for iPhone and iPod for recommendations and reviews.

6. Make it Yours

Not pictured: frantic wiggling.

As you start frolicking through the App Store, you'll notice that your home screens are starting to fill up with a ton of varied icons. This would be a good time to do some personalization and organization. Tap and hold any icon. After a moment, you'll notice that everything starts wiggling, and any app that didn't come pre-loaded on your phone has a little X next to it. This means you're now free to move and delete apps. Simply tap-and-drag any app to move it; you can drag it to the edge of the screen to move between home screens -- or to a new, otherwise blank screen. If you're looking for more organization than that, you can drop any app onto any other to create a new folder with those apps in it. (iOS will suggest a name, but you can name your folder anything you like.) You can even drag folders down onto the dock so they're persistent across home screens.

You'll probably also want to switch away from the default wallpapers. Go to the Settings app and tap Wallpaper. Your current selection will show up; tap it to select from a collection of default wallpapers, or pick a photo from any you've synced with the device to be used as your home screen background, your lock-screen image, or both.

Finally, one other bit of customization: You can take any web page and turn it into a virtual app! Navigate to any page, tap the action button in the middle of the bottom bar, and select Add to Home Screen. You'll be able to rename the page if you desire, then simply click Add and it will pop up on your home screen, able to be moved and deleted just like any app.

7. Get Snapping

He's so photogenic.

Don't like your photo options? Why not make your own? Your new device comes with more photo features than it might seem at first.

Let's start with the iPhone, which has a few features the iPod touch doesn't have due to a heavier-duty camera. Open up your camera app and you'll notice three virtual buttons across the viewfinder, starting with flash control on the left. In the middle is the HDR button, to enable high dynamic range photos. With this on, your phone takes two photos in quick succession: one with low exposure, and one with high. Then the system seamlessly blends the photos together to rescue washed-out highs or muddy lows.

Two other features can be found only on iPhone. Tap anywhere in the camera's viewfinder and you'll notice two things: First, the image will adjust focus and exposure to highlight whatever you've just tapped (iPod touch users, you just get auto-exposure). And second, a slider will appear on the bottom; slide it to the right to zoom in.

And as for that rightmost camera button? Welcome back, iPod touch owners, because you have this too: It's the control to swap between the back- and front-facing cameras. Tap it and give yourself a big smile--and notice that it's reversed, as in a mirror, to make it easier to pose.

While we're on the topic of photos: Did you know that you can tap the Power and Home buttons simultaneously to take a screen shot at any time? It's true! And did you know you can save any photo from the internet by tapping and holding on the image? Also true! The results of both will be saved to your camera roll.

8. Put in Some FaceTime

Don't worry, you'll have time to compose yourself before FaceTime connects; the screen shows your mug until the other party picks up.

So, as you probably know, that front-facing camera is for more than just vanity shots. Its most exciting function is video-chatting via FaceTime. And part of the reason FaceTime is so special is because it's so darn easy. Just open up a contact, scroll down to the bottom, and choose FaceTime.

OK, it's not quite that easy from the start; iPhone users will need to go to Settings > Phone to enable FaceTime, while iPod touch owners will need to validate an e-mail address via the FaceTime app. (iPod touch owners can also use the FaceTime app to keep track of recent FaceTime calls and favorite contacts. Hey, there's something you guys have that iPhone owners don't!)

But once that's out of the way, just tap the FaceTime button in a contact. A request will be sent to any recipient with a camera-equipped device running iOS 4 or higher- or a camera-equipped Mac running the FaceTime beta. If they accept, you'll start up a video call, like magic.

While on a call, you'll get a tiny window with your own image superimposed over the other person's video. You can move this box to any corner if it's blocking your image. You can also tap the image-flip button to show the recipient what you're looking at via the back-facing camera on your device.

9. Text Like a Pro

Windows is Apollo, Mac is Dionysus. Think about it, man.

Getting used to your new device's virtual keyboard is one of the most important things you'll do in your early days of ownership. Most folks seem to take to it surprisingly quickly, though of course the more you thumb-type the quicker and more accurate you'll be. (Don’t forget that in most apps you can turn your phone on its side to get a wider keyboard.)

But even the most accurate of us tend to overlook some of the slick features of the keyboard. For one thing, many buttons hide extra characters behind them. Tap-and-hold any vowel, C, N, $, ?, !, or quote marks and you'll get a selection of alternate versions suitable for other countries and languages. And when entering URLs, you can tap-and-hold on the ".com" button for a selection of other extensions.

The other big keyboard feature is the ability to tap-and-slide. Say you're punching out an email and need to insert a period. OK, wait, bad example: You could just tap space twice, which by default inserts a period and space. Let's say instead that you want to insert a parenthesis. You could tap the ".?123" key, then tap the parenthesis key, then tap the ABC key to get back to letters. Or you could skip two steps by leaving your finger on the ".?123" key and sliding it over to the parenthesis before letting go. The character is inserted and you're automatically returned to the familiar letters-based keyboard. This method is particularly helpful for typing the periods and @ symbols in e-mail addresses.

And don't worry if you're a bit fumble-fingered at first. When typing, you can give your iPhone or iPod a quick shake to bring up an Undo dialog.

10. Keep the Party Going

Of course, these apps are the least likely to cause you problems.

As with any new toy--er, or legitimate business-related purchase--you're going to want to spend plenty of time just playing around and experimenting with your new iThing. In that process, it's conceivable (ok, it's fairly likely) that at some point you'll discover something's no longer working quite right. Fortunately, fixing the most common software-related problems is simple.

If you're having an issue with a particular app, try manually stopping any background processes: Double-tap the Home button to bring up the multitasking options. Tap and hold on the offending app and click the red minus sign. Try opening it again.

If that doesn't work, you can try force-rebooting your device. Hold down both the Home and Power buttons until the unit powers down, and keep holding until you see the Apple symbol. Let go and you should have a cleaner-running device once it completes its power-up.

If that still doesn't fix a problem with a particular app, you can delete the app and re-install it from the App Store. You'll lose any settings or data from the app, but you won't have to buy it again; Apple's vast servers keep a record of your purchases.

For more serious or system-wide problems, you can bring out the big guns and restore to a backup that was made (automatically!) during a previous sync. Connect your device and Option-click on its name under the Devices heading in iTunes.

If all else fails, you can take off and nuke the site from orbit: On the Summary screen for your device is a Restore button that returns your iPhone or iPod to factory condition. Once you do that, it's possible you might be able to restore from a backup successfully. But if not, all your apps and media are still stored on your Mac -- so while it may be a pain to set everything up, you should be able to get back up and running.

But don't get too nervous; having to pull out the heavy-duty fixes is pretty rare. So don't let it stop you from experimenting with your lovely new piece of tech. Hey, it's the holidays--you deserve it!