Apple releases beta of iOS 4.2 with support for AirPrint

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Comments

  • Reply 41 of 59
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by arius View Post


    Can someone please that has installed 4.2 confirm the languages available (for UI).



    Since production is up maybe Apple will expand the availability in more countries.



    Lots of Languages and kbs.



    .
  • Reply 42 of 59
    tulkastulkas Posts: 3,757member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum View Post


    .



    Well, with the OS X update, the iPad sees the Bonjour printer on the AEX....





    No luck printing, yet!





    Update: Success (Printer was on wrong network).



    Not to shabby!



    .



    Does it see it when the Mac is off network? i.e. Is it using the Mac or the AEX as the print server?
  • Reply 43 of 59
    Printing to "shared" printers directly attached to a running Mac or PC is a crap solution.



    I buy network printers to off load the work to a e-star device that sleeps until needed. That was one household, 6 Macs and two corp WinPCees. One network B&W and one network color.



    I'll happily deal with drivers in order to get my iPhones and iPads to print to those network devices



    (BTW the other household has six iPhones, three (soon to be four) Macs and one WinPCeee. Same thought process there)



    Developers: FYI, the printers at all three locations are 1x Brother laser (HL or MFC series) plus 1x HP Officejet w built-in ethernet)
  • Reply 44 of 59
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by digitalclips View Post


    That last part would also include a printer sitting an Airport Extreme too I hope



    I hope so too!!
  • Reply 45 of 59
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Tulkas View Post


    I wonder if Airport connected devices will automatically work? Airport is basically acting as a network print server, so it should be feasible.



    Airport isn't acting like a print processor - it doesn't know the printer. What you send at the Airport which is then forwarded to the printer has to in the printer's native language.



    As a practical example, I have a Canon MX860 and I print to it from my Mac via wifi. iPad running 4.2 doesn't see the printer when connected to the Airport USB; doesn't see it over wifi, does see it when my macbook shares it (macbook is connected to it via wifi).



    Feels like 4.2 supports a limited subset of printers and uses a new protocol. Nothing says that current network printers can't firmware update to support Airprint. I hope Canon does for their current models.
  • Reply 46 of 59
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SailorPaul View Post


    Printing to "shared" printers directly attached to a running Mac or PC is a crap solution.



    I buy network printers to off load the work to a e-star device that sleeps until needed. That was one household, 6 Macs and two corp WinPCees. One network B&W and one network color.



    I'll happily deal with drivers in order to get my iPhones and iPads to print to those network devices



    (BTW the other household has six iPhones, three (soon to be four) Macs and one WinPCeee. Same thought process there)



    Developers: FYI, the printers at all three locations are 1x Brother laser (HL or MFC series) plus 1x HP Officejet w built-in ethernet)



    Well, it can work that way... I presume.



    But I have a network printer (an old HP Deskjet 5700) attached to my AEX.



    This works fine, but currently it requires that somewhere on the network a Mac is running the special OS X released for this purpose. I assume that the Mac contains some sort of store-and-forward translator.



    I suspect this is an interim solution... it is beta, after all.



    .
  • Reply 47 of 59
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Tulkas View Post


    Does it see it when the Mac is off network? i.e. Is it using the Mac or the AEX as the print server?



    No, the Mac is the print server...





    But, I wouldn't jump to conclusions-- the OS X and iOS releases are both betas, and it's the first appearance of this feature.



    .
  • Reply 48 of 59
    hirohiro Posts: 2,663member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Dr Millmoss View Post


    That's my question too. I guess we'll have to wait and see. I also wonder how the heck they support a wide range of printers with no added drivers.



    Actually Apple doesn't support the printers in iOS, they support connection to the Mac/PC that has the printer shared. In effect iOS is leveraging the installed print driver on the PC/Mac without having to do any of the driver related heavy lifting itself.
  • Reply 49 of 59
    hirohiro Posts: 2,663member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ChristophB View Post


    Airport isn't acting like a print processor - it doesn't know the printer. What you send at the Airport which is then forwarded to the printer has to in the printer's native language.



    As a practical example, I have a Canon MX860 and I print to it from my Mac via wifi. iPad running 4.2 doesn't see the printer when connected to the Airport USB; doesn't see it over wifi, does see it when my macbook shares it (macbook is connected to it via wifi).



    Feels like 4.2 supports a limited subset of printers and uses a new protocol. Nothing says that current network printers can't firmware update to support Airprint. I hope Canon does for their current models.



    You have to have printer sharing turned on! You said in your first paragraph

    Quote:

    does see it when my macbook shares it (macbook is connected to it via wifi)



    iOS isn't supporting the printers as I said to Dr. Millmoss above, the Mac/PC does. The HP ePrint is different, we can probably think of that as some form of potential universal driver, a driver that will do basic stuff well, but not support custom printer modes.
  • Reply 50 of 59
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Hiro View Post


    Actually Apple doesn't support the printers in iOS, they support connection to the Mac/PC that has the printer shared. In effect iOS is leveraging the installed print driver on the PC/Mac without having to do any of the driver related heavy lifting itself.



    So it seems, which also means no Windows, at least for now.
  • Reply 51 of 59
    SIM LOCK CODE BUG:



    Ensure to turn off your MicroSIM PIN lock code feature before doing the update to iOS 4.2. I didn't turn off my MicroSIM PIN lock code before updating and now it won't recognize my PIN. I'm going to have to buy another MicroSIM since it doesn't even recognize the PUK to reset the PIN and won't go past the iTunes warning that the MicroSIM needs to be unlocked before it can complete the process.
  • Reply 52 of 59
    hirohiro Posts: 2,663member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Dr Millmoss View Post


    So it seems, which also means no Windows, at least for now.



    I don't know about that. Apple already has Safari on Windows, so they already know how to and have code to print to an installed printer on a Windows machine. All they would need to do is add the communications lashup, although not a trivial project, it's not heinous either. Whether they already have written something to do that or not I don't know. It would probably take a bit longer QA wise because they don't control the platforms on both ends.
  • Reply 53 of 59
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Hiro View Post


    I don't know about that. Apple already has Safari on Windows, so they already know how to and have code to print to an installed printer on a Windows machine. All they would need to do is add the communications lashup, although not a trivial project, it's not heinous either. Whether they already have written something to do that or not I don't know. It would probably take a bit longer QA wise because they don't control the platforms on both ends.



    I'm sure you understand the technical end better than I do, but the issue it seems to me is the dependency on a desktop computer (except in the case of a handful of HP printers). I've been arguing for months that the iPad isn't as dependent on another computer as some think. Then Apple goes and makes it highly dependent for the purposes of printing. I'd hoped for a better solution.
  • Reply 54 of 59
    hirohiro Posts: 2,663member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Dr Millmoss View Post


    I'm sure you understand the technical end better than I do, but the issue it seems to me is the dependency on a desktop computer (except in the case of a handful of HP printers). I've been arguing for months that the iPad isn't as dependent on another computer as some think. Then Apple goes and makes it highly dependent for the purposes of printing. I'd hoped for a better solution.



    Well one tradeoff for not being dependent is about 3GB of printer drivers altogether. That's an awful nasty cut in storage. Or you get into a world of having to support on-the-fly print driver downloads/installs with a fully supported discover everyone else's hardware and then automagically install it. Yes that's probably possible, but I really think it's a losing proposition in the long haul. AND a NASTY raise in the amount of QA that needs to be done for iOS, which comes at a pretty significant cost.



    ePrint may be a solution to all that, I don't know enough about it or if it will become a cross manufacturer thing. Currently it looks very HP proprietary. But if it becomes an open standard and offloads the responsibility for hardware compatibility to the printer's ePrint hardware itself it will be a very scalable and long term workable solution
  • Reply 55 of 59
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Hiro View Post


    Well one tradeoff for not being dependent is about 3GB of printer drivers altogether. That's an awful nasty cut in storage. Or you get into a world of having to support on-the-fly print driver downloads/installs with a fully supported discover everyone else's hardware and then automagically install it. Yes that's probably possible, but I really think it's a losing proposition in the long haul. AND a NASTY raise in the amount of QA that needs to be done for iOS, which comes at a pretty significant cost.



    ePrint may be a solution to all that, I don't know enough about it or if it will become a cross manufacturer thing. Currently it looks very HP proprietary. But if it becomes an open standard and offloads the responsibility for hardware compatibility to the printer's ePrint hardware itself it will be a very scalable and long term workable solution



    Yup, we'll just have to wait and see how this all plays out. In the meantime, I can't pretend that this is the kind of solution I'd hoped for.
  • Reply 56 of 59
    Sorry if this is a n00b question. But we have a AIO printer connected to a Mac Pro in my house. Its inkjet but it isn't wireless, its just plugged into the USB port on the computer. Could I still print from a iPad with that printer?



    Sorry I guess I just don't know a lot about printers ><
  • Reply 57 of 59
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Ghost_of_Beth View Post


    Sorry if this is a n00b question. But we have a AIO printer connected to a Mac Pro in my house. Its inkjet but it isn't wireless, its just plugged into the USB port on the computer. Could I still print from a iPad with that printer?



    Sorry I guess I just don't know a lot about printers ><



    If your Mac Pro has 10.6.5 or later an iPad with iOS 4.2 will see it on a LAN.
  • Reply 58 of 59
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Tulkas View Post


    I wonder if Airport connected devices will automatically work? Airport is basically acting as a network print server, so it should be feasible.



    Nope, definitely not the case for my Epson!
  • Reply 59 of 59
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    If your Mac Pro has 10.6.5 or later an iPad with iOS 4.2 will see it on a LAN.



    Not if it's not one of the HP printers listed! For now AirPrint is only working with specific HP printers.
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