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Raise your hand if you think Apple should re-invent the Printer

lPHONE

lPHONE

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Nov 17, 2009
671
1
I'm really not satified with the quality of most consumer printers. They break easily and the ink always seems to run out. :(
I would love it if Apple made a printer that did cool things like print and fold letters... And came in 7 different colors :D
 
Apple has enough on their plate dealing with the Androids, Blackberrys, Windows, Sonys, etc. etc. without taking on companies like Xerox and Heidelberg
 
oh god i wish if Apple enters both the printers industry and the cameras industry.companies flood the market with the same boring ass designs of printers and cameras which make you wonder for weeks which camera or printer to get...

however, i don't see Apple getting into any of these because simply none of these industries is going anywhere..
 
lPHONE said:
I'm really not satified with the quality of most consumer printers. They break easily and the ink always seems to run out. :(
I would love it if Apple made a printer that did cool things like print and fold letters... And came in 7 different colors :D
Click to expand...

You are about 2 decades two late. Apple did used to make printers, and high quality ones at that. They got out of that business however.

And I believe Epson also made inkjet printers in several colors to match the original iMac colors about 10 years ago.
 
because simply none of these industries is going anywhere..
Click to expand...

lol ... well said, do you speak in public?

I do know one thing about the Photography, Design and Printing Industry

they are not going away:cool:
 
Printers are still a very lucrative business but its getting tougher and tougher. Ink has amazing profit margins. The cost of a retail cartridge is tiny compared to its average selling price and that cost includes the costs of engineering, management etc.

...but printing is not a growth business of the future. To be sure, businesses and consumers will always want some paper, but the amount is going down. Imagine what the smart phone has done to the ink market. Remember when you use to print out a set of "mapquest directions" to your social gathering? Now how many send those directions directly to a phone or use navigation instead.

The iPad and Kindles: bad for ink, bad for paper and bad for printing.
 
lewis82 said:
You should try laser printers. They are cheaper in the other end, and seem to be less break-prone.
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I think that you missed the point. Apple has been there and done that. Apple's LaserWriter line was the definitive [genuine PostScript] family of laser printers. Apple's ImageWriter II was the definitive dot matrix impact printer. I purchased a copy of Apple's last LaserWriter model, the LaserWriter 8500. Dropping its printers was one of many things that Steve Jobs did to turn Apple into what will so be--if it isn't already--the richest company in the World.

Returning to the printer market is a dumb idea that does not benefit Apple's customers. Today, I personally own two working HP inkjet printers and two Xerox Phaser solid ink genuine PostScript printers. There is no value to be added here. There is tremendous deflation in the printer market. Genuine PostScript color printers now sell for less than my older HP DeskJet.

It makes only a little more sense for Apple to get back into the printer business than it would for the company to bring out a new line of victrolas and stereopticons. Apple is about the next big thing, not the last. Move on.
 
weill i wanna printer that makes stuff... like laminated menus and oragami n sh**
 
Nah. I'm not paying $69.99 for a single black inkjet refill cartridge.

They should try cameras though.
 
lPHONE said:
weill i wanna printer that makes stuff... like laminated menus and oragami n sh**
Click to expand...

Printing is not as simple as that ... maybe the Printing Press could Fly your laminated stuff over to your house too.

Like I said Apple has already bitten off enough to deal with the Blackberrys and Windows of the world.
 
talmy said:
A unibody aluminum Apple printer. Magic ink. $499.99

I don't think so.
Click to expand...

lol ... actually the Printer will be $499 the Apple Care $399 and the Ink will be a steal at $99 ... and works flawlessly with your iPad.

Steve Jobs will then be announcing ... we just sold 700,000 printers ... "Printers of the Future at That"
 
lPHONE said:
I'm really not satified with the quality of most consumer printers. They break easily and the ink always seems to run out. :(
I would love it if Apple made a printer that did cool things like print and fold letters... And came in 7 different colors :D
Click to expand...

yeah yeah... apple should OEM from Epson, they do not re-invent anything, they just do OEM.
 
joaoferro99 said:
yeah yeah... apple should OEM from Epson, they do not re-invent anything, they just do OEM.
Click to expand...
This was largely true only in Apple's latter years in the printer business. The printer family most closely associated with the Apple brand was the LaserWriter. Most LaserWriters used the Canon printer engine as did printers from HP and most other printer manufactures at the time. However, the LaserWriter brought PostScript to the masses. Apple played a major role in the development of PostScript and the founding of Adobe.

On the impact printer front, few buyers had any idea that the ImageWriter II used parts supplied by Oki. That would be because the ImageWriter II produced an exclusively 144 dpi bitmap printed page. This was at a time when most printers used a character generator to produce text with only limited graphics capability.

On other fronts, AppleTalk was primarily a network technology for communicating among computers and printers. For years non-Apple printers had nothing like AppleTalk, particularly at the low-end. To the buying public, a networked printer was a big deal. For many Mac users of the same era, it was the default.

In the latter days of Apple printers, the company sold printers, particularly in the StyleWriter [inket] family, that appeared to be Canons or HP DeskJet/DeskWriters with the Apple rainbow logo. Prior to these latter day StyleWriters, however, Apple made major contributions to the printer industry. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
 
I don't think you want Apple to make printers. They did in the past and they were quite good, but now there are similar offerings from others. One note: unless you have a good reason to buy an inkjet, don't. Get a laser. (Yes, they are more expensive intially--sometimes. But they will always save you money in the long run. I bought a Brother HL-2140 on sale for about $75 last year, and I'm still on the first toner cartridge.)

However, let's suppose the Apple of today made printers. Chances are it would have no buttons, so you'd be hard pressed to turn it on or off without pulling the power, resume after an error, print a configuration page, or (if it's networked) set it up without the help of a computer. There is a small chance that they won't even let you open the printer, so if you needed to replace the toner (or, gasp, ink), you'd have to take it in and they will "replace" it (read: replace the whole printer with an equivalent refurbished model) for a slight fee. Or, if they do let you open it, they'd sell Magic Toner and Magic Paper for significantly above the industry average. :D

Just sayin'.
 
No, I think Xerox should make a SMALL duplex-everything solid ink multifunction.
 
autacraft said:
Im surprised none of you have mentioned these:
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Shame on you. I presume that you are shilling for Polaroid? The OP wants Apple to get back into the general purpose printer business, not in the business of digital cameras with integrated printers.
 
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