I can print to my 4 year old HP printer using airport express on the HP photo print app without any computers turned on. Where are the drivers here? Built into the app?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple Announces 'AirPrint' Wireless Printing for iOS Devices Coming in November
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I can print to my 4 year old HP printer using airport express on the HP photo print app without any computers turned on. Where are the drivers here? Built into the app?
While what you say is correct in as far as it goes, it leaves off a rather important caveat... that PC laptop can't do ANYTHING for the last 5 or 6 hours that the iPad is plugging away. Just like the iPad can't show any pretty colors during those 25 or so days that the Kindle is going after the iPad battery is dead. It almost seems as though different devices are better in different situations!
Your mileage, and needs, may vary.
I know we Mac users tend to pride ourselves on the notion that things "just work" and don't require a lot of tinkering and setup, but really... Most printers are USB? Most printers are inkjets? If you're printing to a USB inkjet then surely you must be at home... in which case needing another machine to host the printer hardly seems like an unreasonable hardship. On the road, in a hotel, or in an office.. places where you might need to print to a "foreign" printer from your iPad, are NOT going to be using consumer grade inkjet host-based printers. This seems like a non-issue... I guess we'll see.
I think so. From the HP web site:
"HP iPrint Photo leverages Apple's Bonjour technology to automatically identify HP wireless printers or other supported HP printers available on your network. HP iPrint Photo supports industry standard WiFi environments (including Apple Airport, Linksys, D-Link, Netgear...)."
I'm usually annoyed by people who cannot understand that other people may have different needs than their own and proclaim their own needs should define the user experience.
That said, I'm having a hard time understanding the need for usb printing from an iOS device that some people are claiming they need. If the printer is at home, its probably connected to the home computer from which the iOS device is synced. With printer sharing over wifi, that should be a non-issue. Likewise printer sharing on an airport router would work.
I guess you could have a printer away from home (in an office) and you want to print to it from an ipad and leave the laptop home. It might not be the best solution, but getting an airport express to set up in the alternate location should work. Yes it costs $99 I know.
Perhaps there are some situations where taking a wire from the dock to the printer usb would be desirable. But it seems like a need that will be going away over the years as printers are replaced with newer models with built in wifi.
That said, I'm having a hard time understanding the need for usb printing from an iOS device that some people are claiming they need. If the printer is at home, its probably connected to the home computer from which the iOS device is synced. With printer sharing over wifi, that should be a non-issue. Likewise printer sharing on an airport router would work.
I guess you could have a printer away from home (in an office) and you want to print to it from an ipad and leave the laptop home. It might not be the best solution, but getting an airport express to set up in the alternate location should work. Yes it costs $99 I know.
Perhaps there are some situations where taking a wire from the dock to the printer usb would be desirable. But it seems like a need that will be going away over the years as printers are replaced with newer models with built in wifi.
I agree. I have to assume a lot of people don't really understand what they are asking for when they complain about this.
Having every printer get a brand new driver designed for IOS is going to a colossal mess.
Apple didn't want to have to deal with that, and didn't want to have to deal with the fact that 10,000 different print drivers might cause problems on their device and hog resources.
Apple does like to take cool ideas and mix them with marketing to get the most bang for their buck.
The arguments about this being difficult to support in a backwards-compatible way are really only valid for stand-alone printers - but the announcement also says AirPrint will work with printers hooked up to Mac and PC computers. You can read the announcement two ways - but to me it looks like the computer-connected printers will work whether or not they are ePrint compatible (you can argue this point, but only time will tell). A printer driver on a computer can easily translate from one format to another - this has been done many times before (and, incidentally, is what a lot of printers that can handle multiple input languages do internally).
Of course doing this would also mean that theoretically, for iOS devices, you wouldn't really need to make and install drivers for all possible printer types. You'd only need ONE iOS driver - something like encapsulated postscript that's widely supported and for which there are already converters to other printer formats available. Doing this would allow Apple to offer an important subset of AirPrint capability to non-iOS-4.2 compatible devices - they still couldn't necessarily print to stand-alone AirPrint printers (unless Apple made EPS the language of AirPrint), but they could print to any computer-connect printer. You'd have to install a new driver on the print server, sure - but (if my interpretation of the announcement is correct) such a thing is going to be quietly included in a future system update anyway to support this functionality for iOS 4.2 devices so they can print to older computer-connected printers.
But in any case, Apple's chosen not to implement this in a backwards-compatible way. It's consistent with past decisions to only offer newer features with new hardware, even though older hardware could support it in full or in part - for instance, when new Apple laptops first offered two-fingered support for scrolling. The difference here, though, is that with OS X a third party could (and did!) provide a system patch that enabled that behavior on older hardware that was still capable of that functionality. With the iPad/iPhone/iTouch, though, Apple can (and does!) often prevent third parties from providing certain features for arbitrary reasons - so while someone may try to "make an app" that'd offer this to older devices, Apple might very well deny it under its usual mantra of "duplicate functionality".
I won't be surprised, though, if someone figures out how to support this - at least in part - for most jailbroken devices at some point.
The arguments about this being difficult to support in a backwards-compatible way are really only valid for stand-alone printers - but the announcement also says AirPrint will work with printers hooked up to Mac and PC computers. You can read the announcement two ways - but to me it looks like the computer-connected printers will work whether or not they are ePrint compatible (you can argue this point, but only time will tell). A printer driver on a computer can easily translate from one format to another - this has been done many times before (and, incidentally, is what a lot of printers that can handle multiple input languages do internally).
Of course doing this would also mean that theoretically, for iOS devices, you wouldn't really need to make and install drivers for all possible printer types. You'd only need ONE iOS driver - something like encapsulated postscript that's widely supported and for which there are already converters to other printer formats available. Doing this would allow Apple to offer an important subset of AirPrint capability to non-iOS-4.2 compatible devices - they still couldn't necessarily print to stand-alone AirPrint printers (unless Apple made EPS the language of AirPrint), but they could print to any computer-connect printer. You'd have to install a new driver on the print server, sure - but (if my interpretation of the announcement is correct) such a thing is going to be quietly included in a future system update anyway to support this functionality for iOS 4.2 devices so they can print to older computer-connected printers.
But in any case, Apple's chosen not to implement this in a backwards-compatible way. It's consistent with past decisions to only offer newer features with new hardware, even though older hardware could support it in full or in part - for instance, when new Apple laptops first offered two-fingered support for scrolling. The difference here, though, is that with OS X a third party could (and did!) provide a system patch that enabled that behavior on older hardware that was still capable of that functionality. With the iPad/iPhone/iTouch, though, Apple can (and does!) often prevent third parties from providing certain features for arbitrary reasons - so while someone may try to "make an app" that'd offer this to older devices, Apple might very well deny it under its usual mantra of "duplicate functionality".
I won't be surprised, though, if someone figures out how to support this - at least in part - for most jailbroken devices at some point.
You've got the point. We do have laptops now that can last longer than iPads on a battery but the form factor is important. I am just a little irritated by the level of excitement generated by the fact that Apple finally implemented something so benign as printing
R.I.P. Printer Drivers?
I think this is one of those things decisions that will cause short-term pain but be good in the long term. I was hoping to be able to print from my wireless Brother printer directly from my iPad, but it's not looking like that will be happening (unless Brother releases new firmware or something), but turning on one of my computers to host the AirPrint server won't be the end of the world.
The state of printer drivers just sucks right now. The only more annoying thing is monitor drivers. Hundreds and hundreds of megabytes of printer drivers. Having to install drivers on someones laptop if they just want to print on your wireless printer just once. If this is the step that gets us to having printers be "generic" devices (like plugging in a USB keyboard or sound interface that "just works"), I'm in favor of it. There's no reason why a standard couldn't cover almost every possible printer (e.g., if there is a standard way to query arbitrary properties like printer tray or whatever). I know a lot of printers are really dumb, but surely a CPU or micro-controller capable of rasterizing a print job must be able to be had for a few bucks at most these days, and can't be that much more expensive than a wireless printer that already has to run the IP stack and so forth.
The main question is if the AirPrinting, like FaceTime, will be done through an open standard that other devices (and perhaps eventually even computers) will be able to use, or if it is something proprietary. I really hope it is an open standard--that will definitely aid adoption.
I think this is one of those things decisions that will cause short-term pain but be good in the long term. I was hoping to be able to print from my wireless Brother printer directly from my iPad, but it's not looking like that will be happening (unless Brother releases new firmware or something), but turning on one of my computers to host the AirPrint server won't be the end of the world.
The state of printer drivers just sucks right now. The only more annoying thing is monitor drivers. Hundreds and hundreds of megabytes of printer drivers. Having to install drivers on someones laptop if they just want to print on your wireless printer just once. If this is the step that gets us to having printers be "generic" devices (like plugging in a USB keyboard or sound interface that "just works"), I'm in favor of it. There's no reason why a standard couldn't cover almost every possible printer (e.g., if there is a standard way to query arbitrary properties like printer tray or whatever). I know a lot of printers are really dumb, but surely a CPU or micro-controller capable of rasterizing a print job must be able to be had for a few bucks at most these days, and can't be that much more expensive than a wireless printer that already has to run the IP stack and so forth.
The main question is if the AirPrinting, like FaceTime, will be done through an open standard that other devices (and perhaps eventually even computers) will be able to use, or if it is something proprietary. I really hope it is an open standard--that will definitely aid adoption.
In January 2008 at MacWorld Expo, Ricoh launched the world's first HotSpot Printer products that do not require drivers or software, and the product line continues to grow with scores of MFP models introduced last month. These products allow you to print from ANYWHERE (provided your device has internet access such as WiFi, 3G, EDGE, etc.) and supports most commonly used file types by either forwarding email with attachments to a unique address associated with each printer or by web browser (provided your files are accessible and the browser and OS supports "browse" - this piece is currently limited by IOS). Release codes are provided for each print job to ensure privacy and security and there are cost recovery options available for those who want to charge their customers for mobile printing services. This has been proven to be a rock-solid platform that is dependable, flexible and scalable.
While AirPrint is long overdue, it appears to direct all printing to an Acrobat workflow and all output will be streamed to network printers as a PDF file. If this is correct, any network printer with DirectPDF capabilities should be supported. Photo printing should work just fine, but the jury will decide how effective and productive this method will be for printing documents - my guess is if you are satisfied with the quality of current GoogleDocs workflow, then you be able to live with AirPrint.
While AirPrint is long overdue, it appears to direct all printing to an Acrobat workflow and all output will be streamed to network printers as a PDF file. If this is correct, any network printer with DirectPDF capabilities should be supported. Photo printing should work just fine, but the jury will decide how effective and productive this method will be for printing documents - my guess is if you are satisfied with the quality of current GoogleDocs workflow, then you be able to live with AirPrint.
Argh, could we please forget all this talk of drivers and stuff for iOS. There was never any real need for that, and it would just add clutter to the OS. Any decent network printer will eat Postscript, and offer its services over Bonjour. So why on earth would an iOS device not just feed it Postscript?
Sure, have some neat proprietary standard if you must, but please push Postscript as well, otherwise this is going to be a bit of a pointless exercise for the majority of people and companies not willing to buy a new printer, just to support iOS.
Sure, have some neat proprietary standard if you must, but please push Postscript as well, otherwise this is going to be a bit of a pointless exercise for the majority of people and companies not willing to buy a new printer, just to support iOS.
Hmmm...
Actually, you may be more right than many on this site want to admit. I have a 17" MacBook Pro and love the fact that I have the power make movies and burn DVD's, but I'd say that 95% of the time I'm consuming digital media, utilizing calendar, and corresponding via e-mail. I can't even remember the last time I needed to rip a CD into iTunes...
If pages on the iPad is close to Pages on my Mac (and I'm not utilizing the full-power of Pages), then I can definitely see how a person who has the iPad keyboard, a wireless mouse, and an iPad with a built-in front facing camera and the ability to print, may end up using that as their main computing device.
The processing and RAM may not be there yet, but folks we may be closer to wide spread tablet computing than you think... Food for thought.
Actually, you may be more right than many on this site want to admit. I have a 17" MacBook Pro and love the fact that I have the power make movies and burn DVD's, but I'd say that 95% of the time I'm consuming digital media, utilizing calendar, and corresponding via e-mail. I can't even remember the last time I needed to rip a CD into iTunes...
If pages on the iPad is close to Pages on my Mac (and I'm not utilizing the full-power of Pages), then I can definitely see how a person who has the iPad keyboard, a wireless mouse, and an iPad with a built-in front facing camera and the ability to print, may end up using that as their main computing device.
The processing and RAM may not be there yet, but folks we may be closer to wide spread tablet computing than you think... Food for thought.
Lost in this idea of printer drivers being "dead" is that many printers are also multifuntional. Can we expect someday to be able to control a scanner wirelessly? Or will we need to plug in and use the traditional driver for that?
I've got a cheap Canon scanner that connects via USB. It has a button on it to scan directly to PDF. I don't see why the same couldn't be done and sent over WiFi instead of USB.
Irritated because soon it will be one more thing that you can't use to hate on the iPad and Apple in general. I'm sure you were equally irritated when cut-and-paste came to the iPhone.
Really? One can walk around with a laptop in one hand, turn it on and be surfing in less time than it took to type this sentence? Didn't think so.
Try something new, your trolling is getting a little stale.
