No, it isn't realizing the promise of driverless printing - yet - but it's better than any other stopgap measure I could imagine.Ī few caveats: first, you need a Mac for this (sorry Windows users), and second, your Mac has to be running in order for you to access printer resources (this includes saving to your Dropbox account or your Mac as well). Once installed, all you have to do is pull up the print menu (note that the app has to be compatible with iOS 4.2 and have a print menu enabled) and your printer will appear. I'm currently trying out the 7 day demo (after that, the software costs $9.95 - a meager sum to print from your iPad TODAY instead of some unknown time in the foreseeable future) and can attest that Printopia works as advertised, even exceeding my expectations in its simplicity and ease of use. Not only that, Printopia also serves as a virtual printer, allowing you to save your files as PDFs or JPGs directly to your Dropbox or to your Mac. That solution is Printopia, a small addition to the preference panel in OSX (it works even with 10.5) that allows you to print to any printer connected to your Mac. As usual, an enterprising third-party application developer has solved a seemingly insurmountable problem. The ability to print to any printer via AirPrint has yet to materialize, and until Apple releases another update there is only a select (read: infinitesimally small) number of HP printers that will work.ĭon't despair. Many of these apps integrate with various cloud services to allow printing from them, as well.The promise of iOS 4.2 for the iPad has largely been fulfilled, yet there are still gaps remaining. Some of these apps are rather bare-bones, while others, such as Samsung Mobile Print and Epson iPrint, let you initiate scans from your iPad, and offer a variety of printing functions. These apps generally let you print a variety of document types, and in many cases they have their own browser (with limited features) for loading and printing web pages. The iPhone and printer must be on the same Wi-Fi network if the printer is compatible, the app should readily detect it. These apps tend to offer a much wider range of features and printing options than AirPrint does. Nearly all of the major printer manufacturers now offer apps that let you print from your iPad (or other iOS device) to their brand of printers that support Wi-Fi connectivity. Printopia, meanwhile, lets you "print" a copy of the file you're printing to your Mac, to Dropbox, to Evernote, or to one of several similar cloud-based services. Presto is also compatible with Google Cloud Print, and it allows iOS devices to discover printers via unicast Domain Name Servers (DNS), instead of the (allegedly less reliable) multicast DNS that AirPrint itself uses in discovering printers. Print servers tend to add some extras to AirPrint's functionality. Presto (which was previously known as FingerPrint 2 at the time we reviewed it) is compatible with both Windows and Mac. With Printopia, for instance, you need to install the software on a Mac. (The printer can even be USB-connected, as long as it's on a Wi-Fi network.) These programs function as print servers and can be installed on a computer on your network. If your printer doesn't support AirPrint, you can grab a utility that, in effect, makes it AirPrint-compatible. Once you choose a printer, you're ready to go. Press Select Printer, and the app will search for AirPrint-compatible printers on your Wi-Fi network. Press Print, and the Printer Options screen should appear. It should reveal a print option (as well as social media sharing options). When you open a document in an AirPrint-compatible program, you can access the Share button through an icon (usually a forward arrow) at the top or bottom of the screen. With AirPrint, you can print documents from Apple programs such as Photos, Safari, Mail, and iPhoto, as well as many third-party apps.
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