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Steve Jobs Says Printing "Will Come" for iPad
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I have no idea why no-one has come up with a solution for this. For me it seems like a simple enough thing to achieve. I'm an analyst, not dev, but I would have thought you could create a website www.iPrint.com for example, whereby you register as a user and enter your IP etc to allow your home network be accessed (not sure how you would securely achieve this). You then email a doc from iPad to a server adam@iPrint.com which in turns converts my iWork document to a postscript file. This is then fired to my network printer and printed out.
Sounds very Star Trek, but sure that's simple enough. People wirelessly print as it is now, so why not take it a step further and convert the postscript outside of your network and fire it back in. All printer drivers would be external so there's no problem for the iPad storing these. You'd just need something server side to receive the file. You could print to your home printer from anywhere in the world.
Or better yet, just have a Mac running and use that as a print server to conver the file automatically from iWork to PS and then to the printer...
Anyway, that's just my $0.02 if any dev wants to pinch my idea, I'll accept royalties.
© to me at the time of publishing Monday 10th May 13:03 GMT
Sounds very Star Trek, but sure that's simple enough. People wirelessly print as it is now, so why not take it a step further and convert the postscript outside of your network and fire it back in. All printer drivers would be external so there's no problem for the iPad storing these. You'd just need something server side to receive the file. You could print to your home printer from anywhere in the world.
Or better yet, just have a Mac running and use that as a print server to conver the file automatically from iWork to PS and then to the printer...
Anyway, that's just my $0.02 if any dev wants to pinch my idea, I'll accept royalties.
© to me at the time of publishing Monday 10th May 13:03 GMT
Surely just having a 1gHz processor and very little RAM is technical reason enough not to have the full OS X?
HP (apparently) cancelled their Slate because Windows 7 doesn't run well. I imagine it'd be much the same if OS X was on the iPad.
It's an interesting question.
The drivers are a big stumbling block. Can even Apple get printer manufacturers to write iPhone OS printer drivers to cover a large enough percentage of printers to make it a good general solution? It seems very difficult, but Apple might be able to pull it off. Apple could host a printer driver service so that printer drivers could be downloaded and installed automatically, as needed, rather than bloating the OS with zillions of drivers.
It seems more likely that Apple will provide a print service. Rather than print directly to a printer, the iDevice would actually send print output to a service (hosted by Mac OS or Windows) that has the necessary drivers. The service applies the driver to transform the output to printer-native form. That is then sent to the printer.
I'm not sure if you would install this service on yout own Mac/PC or if Apple would have a centralized service that they host. The first seems more obvious, but you never know with Apple.
The service applies the correct print driver that iPhone out
The iDevice would probably discover likely printers (e.g., the ones close to you physically + your common printers like the ones at work and home). When the user choses one,
I could be done with a
I don't think that model's so bad except for
I'm not a fanboy, but you definitely don't get it. If you want to run a mouse-based UI, get a laptop and run OS X or Windows. Apple will never build mouse support into the iPhone OS. Apple believes (and I agree) that mouse != fingers.
Well..
.. that's boring. A much apt reply would be any one of the following.
1) Who needs to print? Please educate yourself - world is going green.
2) If you want to kill trees - buy an Android phone.
3) Printers are not Open enough - proprietary companies making proprietary printers is just not good for you.
If #3 is followed by Apple releasing a shiny, thin printer which a) can only be attached to iPads with connectors b) could only print iWork created content and c) would be "Magical" enough for the Openness to not matter - that would get even more interesting.
.. that's boring. A much apt reply would be any one of the following.
1) Who needs to print? Please educate yourself - world is going green.
2) If you want to kill trees - buy an Android phone.
3) Printers are not Open enough - proprietary companies making proprietary printers is just not good for you.
If #3 is followed by Apple releasing a shiny, thin printer which a) can only be attached to iPads with connectors b) could only print iWork created content and c) would be "Magical" enough for the Openness to not matter - that would get even more interesting.
For wireless printing, Microtech has already solved this
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/eprint/id304221132?mt=8
For those with printers with no wifi or BT; You just dropped $500 on an iPad. What's another 40 bucks?
I have not tried eprint, but I use HP iPrint, Print Magic, and PrinterShare.
PrinterShare works over the internet - but you must check your printer queue on your mac and tell it to accept. the other 2 work over wifi and works great with my new wifi HP Photosmart C4780. Can't wait to have printing built into the iwork and email apps natively though....
I am using them for my ipad and iphone.
I use Print n' Share from the same company, but I really hate having to have their desktop server software installed on a machine in order to print. If you're on the go and need to print, you have to ask someone to install the WePrint software on their machine first, which defeats the purpose of a device like the iPhone or iPad.
There are plenty of practical reasons for printing documents or photos. The whole world isn't bending over backwards (yet) to save a damn tree.
Doing so defeats the purpose of touch computing. The mouse was invented so we can interact with the screens' content but adds a layer of movement interaction between user and screen. Clicking on an icon, one must navigate the cursor/pointer remotely by moving around a peripheral until the cursor lands on the intented icon, whereas using your finger is more natural and direct to execute.
Maybe he really meant custom imprints on the back of the iPad.
"Happy Birthday little Steevie.
from Rocketman"
45 characters.
"Happy Birthday little Steevie.
from Rocketman"
45 characters.
[/url]
Wow. For all those who say that Steve Jobs is rude in his response emails...no wonder he is if this is what he has to read from users.
I select text with my finger on my iphone all day! Easy enough! It's also nice how you "cue the fanboys" in your original post and then follow on replying to their "pretty silly" posts. everyone uses the term multitouch just like everyone says kleenex, or coke. You sound like you posted just to bait people.
It will come.
Sent from my iPad that prints full pages out of the 30 pin dock connector.
I would imagine Apple will buy a printer company and make a 30 pin connector one.
Sent from my iPad that prints full pages out of the 30 pin dock connector.
I would imagine Apple will buy a printer company and make a 30 pin connector one.
Next, you'll be wanting the iPad applications to be "cursor aware" as well.
Maybe the new MB Air is what you really want.
And by "gimped" of course you mean "specifically designed for the device on which it runs."
You want "gimped?" I tried a relative's new HP TouchSmart laptop yesterday, running touch "enabled" Windows 7. My assessment of the device (aside from its horrific build quality?): LOL!
What a joke of a touch computing experience.
I'm glad Apple isn't trying to cram a desktop OS on a portable touchscreen device.