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Comment by JonoW | Hacker News Reader

> There are ways to get AirPrint working with any Windows or Mac shared printer

This is my main beef with the current tablets; it can't be your only computer, you have to have another to update it from/print from (if you don't have a wireless printer) etc. I would love a tablet that was powerful enough to run a full blown OS, be it Windows or OSX, but run with a tablet specific skin over the top. 95% of the time I would use it just as one would use an iPad now, but in those 5% of times allow me to use the full OS, load up Word and edit a document, run some random Windows program, connect to a VPN etc.

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If Apple have any sense (and I'm fairly confident they do), they'll beef up their Airport/Time Capsule wifi base stations to include printer drivers rather than just accepting raw printer commands from a computer with the driver installed. While they're at it, backing up iOS devices wirelessly to a time capsule wouldn't hurt either.

I figure they'll eventually include AirPrint in iTunes for OS X and Windows so it will automatically share any connected printers for iOS devices. They haven't yet, though...

There's a simple hack for enabling it on OSX (it worked by default in some iOS 4.2 betas but got disabled). In fact, I think this works for anything running a CUPS server (i.e. Linux, BSD, etc.), so doing this in an embedded box should be pretty straightforward. Windows is probably trickier.

Tangent:

Of course I say that, yet I've seen plenty of Linux-based consumer grade routers fuck up printer sharing despite using CUPS. I suspect most of the usual suspects (router makers) won't get in there before Apple. (plus they'll completely fail at marketing that aspect if they do)

I often wonder if there would be a sufficient market for a "better Timp Capsule", i.e. a well-done, pimped-out NAS/Wifi AP/router/printserver, specifically targeted at iPad/Smartphone users (but which works fine for other computers as well). The user experience of all the devices out there (apart from Apple's) is absolute shite, and Apple's are kind of limited.

Good points. I personally think the amount you can't do from tablets will continue to shrink, and if you were starting out fresh, you could get a wireless printer so you're ready without a PC. But yes, today, it's only possible to use an iPad as your only computer if you don't ever have more demanding needs. Still, for writing and reading, it's excellent. I write 1,000+ word essays on mine all the time, and love the fact it's so portable and can be used in almost any position. Maybe a tablet like you describe won't be too far off ... Just so it has as good of battery life an portability as the iPad!

I think the network printer here in the office can expose itself to the network as a Windows server with a printer share. I assume the best network-enabled printers can do the trick.

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