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Will the iPad print to my printer?

post #1 of 23
1/30/10 at 7:53am
Thread Starter 
If it will not do this I will not buy one. Does anyone know ?
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post #2 of 23
1/30/10 at 7:59am
That is a good question... It would be really nice if it could. I have looked a bit and haven't seen anything to this effect, but I don't see why it's not possible, even if the output was as a PDF or JPEG (which many printers can handle easily).

I think the iPad is intended as an extension to a computer, not a full replacement yet. I also haven't seen anything about it being able to set up an Airport network, so I assume it demands an existing one.

I wonder with the SD card reader... you could save an image to the card and then print from that, possibly.

---

I'm sure developers will come up with something.

 

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Your = the possessive of you, as in, "Your name is Tom, right?" or "What is your name?"

 

You're = a contraction of YOU + ARE as in, "You are right" --> "You're right."

 

 

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post #3 of 23
1/30/10 at 10:13am
Check this article:

Apple to target iPad at business users through new features - sources

To quote:

"Sources who talked to Apple's business unit also say the company is working on some additional features that haven't been publicly announced yet. These include support for direct network printing from iPad apps…"
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post #4 of 23
1/30/10 at 10:44am
Yes, it's a new SDK feature I believe.

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post #5 of 23
1/30/10 at 10:46am
Sounds cool. Hope it happens.

 

Your = the possessive of you, as in, "Your name is Tom, right?" or "What is your name?"

 

You're = a contraction of YOU + ARE as in, "You are right" --> "You're right."

 

 

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Your = the possessive of you, as in, "Your name is Tom, right?" or "What is your name?"

 

You're = a contraction of YOU + ARE as in, "You are right" --> "You're right."

 

 

Reply
post #6 of 23
1/30/10 at 10:48am
Yes it most likely will. Printing is one of a few areas in which Apple divulged no additional information. But the fact that we can create longer documents on the iPad portends native printing solutions.

I don't know about you but I'm making sure my next printer supports Wifi. Though I could see Apple also making it easy to print from iPad through a Airport Extreme connected printer. That would add Wifi and more to just about every modern printer.
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post #7 of 23
1/30/10 at 10:48am
Hmm... My iPod Touch can print images directly to my wireless printer (HP). Both HP and Epson have photo printing apps that work without a computer. Obviously nothing's stopping developers from using printer output at an application level right now (I'm still waiting for an app to print PDFs or even plain text though). I guess it's just that there's no OS-level printing.

So for now, unless your printer manufacturer provides an appropriate app, or theoretically, if a developer provides an app that works for a specific printer or printers, you'll have to settle for printing indirectly via a Mac or PC. This is what will change with the iPad (envisions the "iChooser" app ).

I'm fortunate that I got one of the few printers that is supported.
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post #8 of 23
1/30/10 at 10:50am
They have the keyboard dock... it's almost natural to assume they envision people having no computer at some point and just using the iPad.

It would need printing and the ability to set up a wireless network.

 

Your = the possessive of you, as in, "Your name is Tom, right?" or "What is your name?"

 

You're = a contraction of YOU + ARE as in, "You are right" --> "You're right."

 

 

Reply

 

Your = the possessive of you, as in, "Your name is Tom, right?" or "What is your name?"

 

You're = a contraction of YOU + ARE as in, "You are right" --> "You're right."

 

 

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post #9 of 23
1/30/10 at 3:56pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by hmurchison View Post

I don't know about you but I'm making sure my next printer supports Wifi. Though I could see Apple also making it easy to print from iPad through a Airport Extreme connected printer. That would add Wifi and more to just about every modern printer.

There is a difference between a 'Wi-Fi printer' and one that supports 'Wi-Fi Direct', right?

The former requires both devices to be linked via internet, whereas the latter (if I understand this correctly) uses the built-in Wi-Fi capability of each device to communicate directly. I see this as being much simpler and easier to use, especially when travelling.

I don't believe Wi-Fi Direct devices are on the market yet, but I would hope current Wi-Fi printers are upgradable via firmware. Otherwise, this could get messy.
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post #10 of 23
1/30/10 at 4:59pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Frank777 View Post

There is a difference between a 'Wi-Fi printer' and one that supports 'Wi-Fi Direct', right?

The former requires both devices to be linked via internet, whereas the latter (if I understand this correctly) uses the built-in Wi-Fi capability of each device to communicate directly. I see this as being much simpler and easier to use, especially when travelling.

I don't believe Wi-Fi Direct devices are on the market yet, but I would hope current Wi-Fi printers are upgradable via firmware. Otherwise, this could get messy.

Yup. Wifi Direct is probably the direction that thing need to head. Sony is I think branding their flavor of Wifi Direct with "Transferjet" for transferring files over Wifi. They announced a Transferjet Memory Stick and supporting cameras at CES
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post #11 of 23
1/31/10 at 3:19pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bergermeister View Post

They have the keyboard dock... it's almost natural to assume they envision people having no computer at some point and just using the iPad.

It would need printing and the ability to set up a wireless network.

Right now iPad is dependent upon one having a computer to hook it up to. So I'm not convinced that is where they see iPad going. Given that I do think printing is coming.

Actually I kinda wish that they ipad was designed to be a completely independent system free of the need to hook up to a PC through iTunes. But I'm not completely opposed to the current approach.

Dave
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post #12 of 23
1/31/10 at 5:13pm
Leave it to Sony to take a promising new technology, and add a proprietary name to confuse things further.
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post #13 of 23
1/31/10 at 9:27pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Frank777 View Post

Leave it to Sony to take a promising new technology, and add a proprietary name to confuse things further.

i.Link LOL
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post #14 of 23
2/1/10 at 3:41am
The answer is rather YES.
Some presenter leaked a cautious remark about that during the 27th Event keynote. Devs --- programmers, I mean --- are discovering and disclosing new APIs, which are supposed to serve printing. The feature might not have been ready for public presentation yet, it might not have been terrifically spectacular to have a focus on it, but it seems expected.

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post #15 of 23
2/7/10 at 4:11pm
I use WEprint in my Touch and it works great. Surely the iPad will do the same.
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post #16 of 23
2/15/10 at 11:24pm
You should be able to print more easily than having to use another computer . What if you are using this for a business trip and need to print a document or even a PDF and don't have another computer to transfer it to. I can also see needing to print my boarding pass with this, from the airline website. That should be possible, but seems like it might not be.

Thanks.
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post #17 of 23
2/16/10 at 1:23am
As I said, it is possible, even within the iPod Touch and iPhone platform as it is, to print directly without using a computer. I can do this right now with HP iPrint Photo, and Epson has a similar utility, called... you guessed it... Epson iPrint. Canon has a similar utility, but it doesn't support all of their wireless printers.

There's even a third party utility now, ePrint (who thinks of these amazing names!?) which can print other kinds of documents to Bonjour enabled printers and adjust print settings through a proprietary driver (haven't tested it myself).

Currently, however, direct printing requires an application level, rather than OS level print driver. The question here is whether the iPad will introduce OS level printing.
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post #18 of 23
2/16/10 at 6:53am
OS level printing is what he's looking for I'd say. I'm testing ePrint Free now.

Didn't work.

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post #19 of 23
2/16/10 at 7:15am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ireland View Post

OS level printing is what he's looking for I'd say. I'm testing ePrint Free now.

Didn't work.

What's your printer? Does your wireless printer support one of the photo printing apps (Canon, HP, Epson)?

EDIT I just tried the full version of ePrint to print the AI forums and it worked absolutely great with my HP. Nice program.
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post #20 of 23
2/16/10 at 10:34pm
Yes printing is supported for the iPad SDK. It's very similar to OS X style print drivers, so just about any printer will be supported in short order.
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post #21 of 23
2/17/10 at 5:12am
HP iPrint Photo 2.0, theres an app for that ^^
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post #22 of 23
4/28/10 at 11:04am
Here an easy way to print from iPAd. No apps needed
http://wiki.nisi.ro/2010/04/how-to-p...ocs-from-ipad/
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post #23 of 23
4/30/10 at 12:44am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Frank777 View Post

There is a difference between a 'Wi-Fi printer' and one that supports 'Wi-Fi Direct', right?

The former requires both devices to be linked via internet...

A local netwrok will do it, if that's what you mean. In my home setting the printer is configured to receive print jobs from any computer through the AirPort Base Station. It can also communicate directly with each computer but I chose the network solution because of security and performance issues (direct or ad hoc connections support only WEP security while the performance is better when you go through a router, according to the printer's user manual).
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