Hacker News Reader

Comment by pavs | Hacker News Reader

Question. I haven't used a Printer for a while so I don't know much about printers, but wasn't it possible to print from wi-fi for quite some time now? Or is it really a "next-generation print architecture" as Apple like to call it.

View on HN

Today wi-fi printers usually use some proprietary protocol (and with my Canon and HP printers I had nothing but trouble). Currently the only way to print over the net without drivers is to use Postscript-capable, or possibly PCL-capable, printers with support for LPD or IPP protocols. That's common for network laser printers, but not for cheap consumer inkjets. So if Apple can get manufacturers to support a common protocol for network-enabled consumer-level printers, that would quite an improvement. At least for Apple users...

Here's the part that sounds like a break-through convenience to me:

>a next-generation Wi-Fi print architecture that dramatically

>simplifies printing by completely eliminating printer drivers

That seems pretty silly. You can't eliminate drivers -- something has to talk to the hardware -- you can just standardize them.

What sounds better to a potential customer: "This technology eliminates the need for dealing with printer drivers" or "This technology standardizes printer drivers?" If I'm the salesman, I'm going to go with the former. It's not even really a falsehood from the perspective of someone who would have to install the drivers.

It's a falsehood when you leave out the part where it only works with very specific printers that support your new driver.

Since that part was not left out, I don't see what the problem is.

I'm not particularly interested in debating the honesty or lack thereof of the advertising. I just want to say that I'm glad that Apple's innovations will allow us to leave behind the old world where you had to either desperately hope the printer would work with you or fight with drivers, and enter a brave new world where you have to either desperately hope the printer will work for you or fight with drivers.

That sounded cool until I read the press release: "A selection of AirPrint enabled printers including the HP Photosmart, HP LaserJet Pro and HP Officejet will be the first to support printing direct from iOS devices." I take that to mean the printer needs to support this, which means AirPrint replaces the driver, and rather than adapt the driver to the OS, the printer adapts to the driver. Is this the case?

It would be nice if AirPrint could be enabled for non-AirPrint printers through something like Apple's AirPort Extreme, which already makes printer sharing easy. Maybe this is already supported via some other means and I'm just missing something.

You can enable non-AirPrint printers by sharing them through iTunes 10 (PC) or Mac OS X 10.6.5 (Mac).

You could in earlier dev releases but not in the later ones (including, apparently, the public releases today). Apple hasn't made a public statement that I've seen saying whether that feature is coming back. On the plus side, some cheap 3rd party utilities have already sprung up to add that feature.

There seems to be some confusion on this, as the Engadget review of iOS 4.2 includes this: You are able to utilize printers connected to other machines on your network (in OS X 10.6.5 only), but it's a slightly clunkier way to get things done.

But other reviews I've seen, including MacWorld's, seem to imply that printing to a shared printer isn't supported.

I've built printing into my iOS app, so I'm a bit desperate to determine what the status is exactly. It's so frustrating because it works fine in iOS 4.2 beta, and the difference between AirPrint-compatible printers only and supporting any printer is HUGE (obviously).

I believe the reason this has got so confused is that the earlier betas had a driver/OSX thingy you could install which enabled your printers to show up in AirPrint. However they decided (with no explanation that I know of) to pull this feature for release. What happens, though, is that people who installed that beta driver on OSX still have it and if they are attempting to review 4.2-release on the same machines, they might mistakenly be thinking it has that support with it because the old beta stuff is still installed on their system and so their iPad will happily see their printers and use them.

I'm quite sure that Apple has stated that officially the only printers supported by AirPlay (now) are those few HP models listed in the press release. I've seen a few statements supposedly made by Apple people that always include the words "for now." I suspect what happened is the beta test either revealed that the setup process was "too weird" or they ran into a number of nasty bugs and decided to hold off until they could nail it all down. Whatever the real reason is, though, Apple doesn't seem to be talking about it.

Here is one: http://www.ecamm.com/mac/printopia/

You can? Great! Sorry, I would have tried this myself, but I'm not home yet to do so. That's good news though.

Thanks for letting me know. =)

Edit: After further reading, I've discovered that this is not the case. =( There are apparently means to fix this via third party apps, however.

Too late to edit it, but as others pointed out, I'm wrong. I hadn't checked things out since I had done something stupid with my Mac that required a re-install, so I simply assumed that the feature was still there.

Mea culpa.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com