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Comment by glhaynes | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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/

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