HP and Apple working on automated printer driver delivery in Leopard

[AppleInsider]

In a move that's sure to be welcomed by customers of both parties, HP is reported to be working with Apple to allow users of Mac OS X Leopard to instantly receive the the latest versions of HP's printer drivers over Leopard's built-in Software Update mechanism.

In seeding Leopard build 9A559 to its developer community last week, Apple listed only two known issues with the software, one of which instructed testers with HP printers connected to their system to perform a custom install of the next-gen operating system and de-select the HP printer drivers in the installer.

"The HP printer drivers will be delivered post-install via Software Update," the company told testers.

Although listed in Leopard's developer documentation as a 'known issue', the recommendation to use Apple’s software update process to install the drivers was actually a test scenario, not a driver problem or bug issue, reports MacNN.

"HP has a large market share with Apple customers and is very pleased that Apple has chosen HP drivers and software to test with the latest Leopard developer seed and software update process," a representative for HP told the Mac news publication. "Please note that the HP driver set in the latest Leopard seed and from the software update process is the exact same HP software code and driver bundle, no difference, and should work great with this latest Leopard seed."

In speaking to MacNN, the HP rep went on to say that if there are no existing HP printer queues or HP printers connected to the Mac via USB, then Leopard's version of Software Update will not download or add any HP printer drivers.

[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]

[VinitaBoy]

As an Apple Developer, I've said this to hundreds of friends over the years who've asked about a printer choice: HP? Great hardware, crappy software. No, really. CRAPPY software. Perhaps this new mechanism will resolve that problem.

[sandau]

red box is coming... lol

[Royboy]

Originally Posted by VinitaBoy

As an Apple Developer, I've said this to hundreds of friends over the years who've asked about a printer choice: HP? Great hardware, crappy software. No, really. CRAPPY software. Perhaps this new mechanism will resolve that problem.

You nailed it!

[emig647]

I'll gladly accept this with my Leopard build. I've tried all the printers... last of which was HP. I've had nothing but good luck with HP printers since I dove in. All the others just seem to be off of HP's pace. Hope this resolves the hp installation nightmares on 10.4

[rhowarth]

Sure to be welcomed? Yeah, right.

The last time I had a printer from HP the "driver" software filled 2 CDs and I ended up with more than a gigabyte of crap on my system. Dozens and dozens of applications, background processes, and who knows what else, that were confusing and difficult to use, took up memory, slowed down the computer, and even made my system as a whole unstable. It doesn't matter whether this is under Mac OS 9, Windows or Mac OS X, it's the same on each - tons of irrelevant and unnecessary "stuff".

It's a printer, all I want to do is print. Why they can't provide a single, simple driver that does just that and dispense with all the other crap I don't know, but either way, I swore never to buy another HP printer from that point on.

[emig647]

^^ I think this will be the case with this automated system...

I agree with what you said but add a cleaning utility and you have a winner.

[Buck]

Horrible software indeed! I once had to disassemble their VISE installer just to get to the actual scanner driver and skip the HP branded junk (like iPhoto replacements and whatnot). That also makes their downloads HUGE which sucks if you have a slow connection and need to get the work done... As for the printers, you can't go wrong with Postscript. More and more cheaper printers support it and it's a good thing.

[sandau]

Originally Posted by rhowarth

Sure to be welcomed? Yeah, right.

The last time I had a printer from HP the "driver" software filled 2 CDs and I ended up with more than a gigabyte of crap on my system. Dozens and dozens of applications, background processes, and who knows what else, that were confusing and difficult to use, took up memory, slowed down the computer, and even made my system as a whole unstable. It doesn't matter whether this is under Mac OS 9, Windows or Mac OS X, it's the same on each - tons of irrelevant and unnecessary "stuff".

It's a printer, all I want to do is print. Why they can't provide a single, simple driver that does just that and dispense with all the other crap I don't know, but either way, I swore never to buy another HP printer from that point on.

I bought a HP C5180 with my iPhone rebate, and I just double checked what it installed:

2 dock items (device manager, photosmart studio) which are applications in the 50mb HP folder located in Applications

1 item in Utilities (hp printer selector)

1 process: hp event handler

That's really not that bad. Perhaps they've been working with Apple a little more closely lately!


update: AppZapper showed me 3 plist items in Library/Preferences.

[Zandros]

Actually, I don't get what you are whining about... the HP printer I had worked just excellent over the LAN. Granted, scanning possibilities were limited without HP software but printing worked excellent - even better than the Windows system that required the drivers to identify the printer properly.

/Adrian

[sandau]

Originally Posted by Zandros

Actually, I don't get what you are whining about... the HP printer I had worked just excellent over the LAN. Granted, scanning possibilities were limited without HP software but printing worked excellent - even better than the Windows system that required the drivers to identify the printer properly.

/Adrian

I have to add that I am using this printer plugged into my home network and shared between my mac and my wife's window's vista computer.

installing for the mac was a breeze, literally. less than 10 minutes, just worked. ooh, look, magic printer (scanner / copier)!

installing for windows vista was a PITA. Almost an hour to get it to work with the networked printer and two installs of the drivers.

[SpamSandwich]

Originally Posted by VinitaBoy

As an Apple Developer, I've said this to hundreds of friends over the years who've asked about a printer choice: HP? Great hardware, crappy software. No, really. CRAPPY software. Perhaps this new mechanism will resolve that problem.

Boo-yaaaaaaah! HP seems totally clueless about integrating with Apple... hope this works out. FFS!

[MacTel]

Originally Posted by SpamSandwich

Boo-yaaaaaaah! HP seems totally clueless about integrating with Apple... hope this works out. FFS!

Yep. I is about time HP they did this.

[SpamSandwich]

Originally Posted by Buck

Horrible software indeed! I once had to disassemble their VISE installer just to get to the actual scanner driver and skip the HP branded junk (like iPhoto replacements and whatnot). That also makes their downloads HUGE which sucks if you have a slow connection and need to get the work done... As for the printers, you can't go wrong with Postscript. More and more cheaper printers support it and it's a good thing.

Could you list a few names and model numbers, I'd like to investigate some inexpensive PS printers. Thanks!

[Silencio]

If you want to investigate some inexpensive PS (clone) printers, I'd highly recommend Brother. Their network models are generally pretty nice -- $250-300 should buy you a nice little workhorse.

For real Adobe Postscript I tend to go with Xerox, though Ricoh has some affordable options as well.

I too am part of the chorus of ex-HP customers. Their overall quality really dropped when they abandoned Adobe Postscript, and their multifunction printers in particular are an ongoing nightmare of bad driver software (see the notorious "HP Communications" process as Exhibit A).

[kim kap sol]

I've never used the scanning feature on a AIO HP printers but I hope all of HP's printers/scanners will just work with Apple's own print manager and Image Capture app instead of HP's home-brew apps. It's not that I hate HP's apps, I jus...aww hell, I hate HP's apps, why am I even trying to hide my feelings.

One thing that is cool in 10.5 is that Apple did away with Printer Setup Utility. You now set is up in System Preferences and when you print someone, the printer you chose simply pops up in the Dock to show you the document queue. Clean and simple. Exactly the way it should be. I hope HP and other printer companies aren't pushing their own software. If they want to add features, they should work with Apple to add it in the existing printer/scanner software Apple has developed.

[JeffDM]

I'm very happy with a Color LaserJet 2605dn that I bought a couple months ago. If I didn't want automatic duplexing (without which, makes it equiv to 2600n), then you don't need to install drivers, you can click it in the print pane because the printer shows up on Bonjour. I installed the driver so I can do duplex printing. The driver install went very well and has caused me no trouble yet.

I'd stay away from the consumer product lines, but their small office product line seems to be pretty good.

[JeffDM]

Originally Posted by Silencio

If you want to investigate some inexpensive PS (clone) printers, I'd highly recommend Brother. Their network models are generally pretty nice -- $250-300 should buy you a nice little workhorse.

For real Adobe Postscript I tend to go with Xerox, though Ricoh has some affordable options as well.

I too am part of the chorus of ex-HP customers. Their overall quality really dropped when they abandoned Adobe Postscript, and their multifunction printers in particular are an ongoing nightmare of bad driver software (see the notorious "HP Communications" process as Exhibit A).

The Brother MFC line should be looked on with suspicion though. They don't provide much toner with the cartridge for my 7820, and the Mac fax and scanning software is not very good. Thankfully, I don't need to use it with my Mac.

[SpamSandwich]

I was under the ongoing impression that Brother products were shoddily made, and tend to break down quickly. No longer true?

[lkrupp]

Originally Posted by SpamSandwich

I was under the ongoing impression that Brother products were shoddily made, and tend to break down quickly. No longer true?

Every manufacturer has detractors, sometimes vehement and on a mission to make them pay for a perceived injustice or other issue. Most of this stuff nowadays have similar innards, sometimes produced in the same factory. Over the years I have learned to pretty much ignore so-called user reviews and consider them to be unreliable at best, almost always filled with personal bias and uniformed claims. Same goes for individual customer service reports. Somebody always has an axe to grind or a point to make.

Stick with reviews by outfits like consumer reports, c|net, etc. And take them with a grain of skepticism too. Some are paid by manufacturers to give glowing reviews.

In the end trust no one but yourself. Do your homework. Try things out if possible.

[gastroboy]

No, PLEASE No!

HP printer software contains spyware that reports your printer usage back home, all whilst leaking both real and virtual memory till it brings your computer to its knees.

Its scanner software is also a model of how NOT to produce anything productive.

[JeffDM]

Originally Posted by lkrupp

Most of this stuff nowadays have similar innards, sometimes produced in the same factory.

The rest of your post is valid, but I don't think this is so true, or true very often. I really haven't seen any rebrands or rebadges, maybe a company like Dell does that but Brother, Epson, Canon, HP and other major printer makers seem to use their own designs. There may be some parts in common, much like with notebooks where many different notebooks might use the same LCD panel, a scanning element or a stepper motor might be used in several different brands, but that says nothing about the rest of the machine, whether the parts were properly designed or properly chosen to work and last a long time is a different matter. Being made in the same factory doesn't mean anything either.

[SpamSandwich]

Originally Posted by lkrupp

Stick with reviews by outfits like consumer reports, c|net, etc. And take them with a grain of skepticism too. Some are paid by manufacturers to give glowing reviews.

In the end trust no one but yourself. Do your homework. Try things out if possible.

Word of mouth from a friend, co-worker or acquaintance would be preferred, but still it doesn't answer the basic question... is Brother now a more reliable brand? Years ago, they were cheap crap.

Who here owns which printer(s)?

I use:

- HP Photosmart Pro B8350
- HP DeskJet 9650
- Canon Pixma MP 780 (all-in-one)

...and quite frankly, I'm not impressed with any of them.

[tetzel1517]

Ah, this brings back memories of the dreaded "HP Communications" app that refused to go away, even when I thought I uninstalled everything HP-related on my machine when I sold my old SLOW-AS-HELL HP printer. God, it was so. freaking. slow.

We now have a Canon PIXMA MP460 that works like a dream, even though the last Airport update forced us to connect it directly to the iMac and turn on printer sharing (which means my fiancée's MacBook can only print to it when my machine is turned on and awake... which is often, but that's beside the point). But I blame Apple for that, not Canon.

[Buck]

Well, here are a couple of Postscript-ish printers out there:
Xerox, my favorite brand, produces Phaser 6120: http://www.office.xerox.com/printers...spec-enus.html ($350)
HP produces LaserJet3050 (I'm sure I've seen other models in this range): http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en...2-1140783.html

And Xerox's solid ink printers are fun and support Postscript natively, although they start at $700... So basically you no longer need to pay thousands for that kind of functionality - that's what I meant.

[ravedog]

Originally Posted by lkrupp

Stick with reviews by outfits like consumer reports, c|net, etc. And take them with a grain of skepticism too. Some are paid by manufacturers to give glowing reviews.

Consumer Reports is an independant operation and takes no ad revenue from anyone.

[rhowarth]

Originally Posted by sandau

I bought a HP C5180 with my iPhone rebate, and I just double checked what it installed:

2 dock items (device manager, photosmart studio) which are applications in the 50mb HP folder located in Applications
1 item in Utilities (hp printer selector)
1 process: hp event handler
AppZapper showed me 3 plist items in Library/Preferences.

That's really not that bad. Perhaps they've been working with Apple a little more closely lately!

Precisely. Isn't that 2 dock items, 1 utility item, 1 process and 3 preferences entries too many? The only thing I need or want to see is an "HP 5180" item in the printer drop down of a Print dialog.

[emig647]

You expect OS X to pull off the AIO abilities of that printer? I don't think that would work. Apple would then have to supply the API for all of the printer manufacturers to follow when building their printers. That won't fly.

What I'm getting at is just because the OS knows what printer is the defautl printer, doesn't mean it will know how to do Faxing, Double sided printing, copying, scanning, etc just from a printer driver. There will need to be software to control all of that. And because printers vary so much manufacture to manufacture, Apple couldn't really supply an application that will work between all of them without pissing them off. I find the mentioned above completely acceptable for an AIO.

[JeffDM]

Originally Posted by emig647

You expect OS X to pull off the AIO abilities of that printer? I don't think that would work. Apple would then have to supply the API for all of the printer manufacturers to follow when building their printers. That won't fly.

What I'm getting at is just because the OS knows what printer is the defautl printer, doesn't mean it will know how to do Faxing, Double sided printing, copying, scanning, etc just from a printer driver. There will need to be software to control all of that. And because printers vary so much manufacture to manufacture, Apple couldn't really supply an application that will work between all of them without pissing them off. I find the mentioned above completely acceptable for an AIO.

It's not that far-fetched. I think Apple provides APIs and driver structures for printers (including duplexing), faxing and scanning. A single program to unify all those functions to make it easy for the user, plus drivers, should be enough.

[kim kap sol]

Originally Posted by emig647

You expect OS X to pull off the AIO abilities of that printer? I don't think that would work. Apple would then have to supply the API for all of the printer manufacturers to follow when building their printers. That won't fly.

What I'm getting at is just because the OS knows what printer is the defautl printer, doesn't mean it will know how to do Faxing,

Yes it should.

Double sided printing,

Yes, through drivers.

copying, scanning, etc just from a printer driver.

Yes, yes and yes. Drivers should be able to grab any of that data and send it to the appropriate apps or send data from apps to the printer...that's the whole point. The APIs abstract everything so that any printer can print anything sent to it by Mac OS X's print dialog (as long as the drivers are present of course)...and it should work the other way too. When someone scans something, the drivers should be able to send data from the printer to Mac OS X and send this to Image Capture or send a fax image through the computer's modem.

There's no excuse...if the drivers can send this data to an HP app...it can send this data to any app.

There will need to be software to control all of that. And because printers vary so much manufacture to manufacture, Apple couldn't really supply an application that will work between all of them without pissing them off. I find the mentioned above completely acceptable for an AIO.

Printers don't receive or send encrypted data that can only be read by a single proprietary app. Things don't happen magically. Standards are usually followed. And if they aren't, the drivers should make sure the data can be understood by Mac OS X.

Why would TWAIN exist if this weren't so?

[Jemster]

Originally Posted by sandau

I bought a HP C5180 with my iPhone rebate, and I just double checked what it installed:

2 dock items (device manager, photosmart studio) which are applications in the 50mb HP folder located in Applications

1 item in Utilities (hp printer selector)

1 process: hp event handler

That's really not that bad. Perhaps they've been working with Apple a little more closely lately!


update: AppZapper showed me 3 plist items in Library/Preferences.

My parents have a nice little 17" iMac with the 512MB of RAM and this had been plenty of memory for them. A few weeks ago they acquired an HP Photosmart 8100 printer and since then had been complaining of a slow system.

I checked it out for them last weekend - HP's software is all PPC running under Rosetta! They're not even Universal Binaries, hence they are chewing up nearly all the (small amount of) available RAM on loading - and they insist on loading on logon, regardless of whether the printer is being used. I tried unchecking whatever the only thing was in the auto-load on logon preferences but regardless of me unchecking the option, it still loaded.

This finally convinced them to upgrade the RAM but this is pathetic for something that should be a simple printer driver. Try taking a look with Activity Monitor, you may be surprised (or I may if your drivers differ from theirs!)

I'm sure they're not the only ones, but even so....

[MacGregor]

It has to be better than emailed tech support?!!??!

Why should we ever have uninstall drivers to update them?!?!?

[bsenka]

Originally Posted by ravedog

Consumer Reports is an independant operation and takes no ad revenue from anyone.

Sure, they don't sell ads, they just sell huge blocks of subscriptions. The ratings are based on subscriber feedback, so the more subscriptions a company buys, the more direct influence they have over the ratings.

[lundy]

Ripping out that huge pile of steaming HP software was a pleasure. My PSC 2150 finally croaked last week and I have never been so happy. What a piece of junk.

No more HP stuff for me. I looked at a Lexmark driver and it was actually in an OS X installer. Imagine that - not in a Carbon-kludged VISE installer that wants to mess with your /System folder.

[McDave]

Originally Posted by AppleInsider

"The HP printer drivers will be delivered post-install via Software Update," the company told testers.

Good - we need more 3rd party updates delivered via software update. Flash & Windows Media also have a huge marketshare and while I tell any newbies considering a switch that they don't have a do a second install for security (probably negated by Vista now), they certainly have to do one for media playback.

McD

[britwithgoodteeth]

Originally Posted by MacTel

Yep. I is about time HP they did this.

Well said!

[ghiangelo]

as for printer drivers in general - they're all crappy on OsX. i'm sure this is why Apple bought Unix CUPS and will no doubt refine it further for improved driver performance and usability.

[JeffDM]

Originally Posted by lundy

Ripping out that huge pile of steaming HP software was a pleasure. My PSC 2150 finally croaked last week and I have never been so happy. What a piece of junk.

No more HP stuff for me. I looked at a Lexmark driver and it was actually in an OS X installer. Imagine that - not in a Carbon-kludged VISE installer that wants to mess with your /System folder.

Has Lexmark changed their other ways though? They were the ones that put chips in the ink cartridges and sued anyone that reverse engineered the chips to make competing inks.