It’s been nearly four months since iOS 4.2 for the iPad was released, with AirPrint as one of the headline new features included in it. Initially, AirPrint was touted by Apple as bringing ‘universal’ wireless printing to the iPad and iOS.
By the time the 4.2 update was released that had been scaled back enormously – it offered wireless printing only to AirPrint-enabled printers and the list of those was pathetically short. Back in November the list contained only seven printers, all from only one manufacturer, HP.
Today I had a quick glance at Apple’s list of Airprint-enabled printers again – hoping and expecting that it would have expanded quite a bit. Sadly, it hasn’t. There are now only 17 printers on the list – still all from HP. I realize it is probably legal and licensing reasons that are crippling this list right now, not technology-related ones, but even so it strikes me as very lame on Apple’s part that they promised the world on this feature and they’ve not even come close to delivering on the promise.
Luckily if you use a Mac, there is this clever and painless tweak that enables you to use AirPrint with just about any printer you like.
I really hope will get things sorted out soon and make AirPrint somewhere at least close to as universal as it was promised to be.
Patrick Jordan
Founder and Editor in Chief of iPad Insight. Husband, father to a lovely daughter, Commander of the Armies of the North, dog lover (especially Labs), Austinite, former Londoner, IT consultant, huge sports nut, iPad and mobile tech blogger, mobile apps junkie.
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Where can I get support for brothers printers?
If you’re willing to invest another $20.00 AirPrint will work with almost all wireless printers. (There are a few caveats) You install Printopia on your Mac ($19.95) and then the iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch can print to any of the printers connected to that Mac. It works flawlessly and it’s quick. The major disadvantage here is that the Macintosh must be powered up at the time you print. (It acts as a print server) but that doesn’t represent a problem for me because my laptop runs 24 hours a day. I’ve never had a problem printing even if the Mac has gone to sleep. And I can print from anywhere that’s in range of my AirPort. Yes. It would be a more elegant solution if it wasn’t necessary to have a computer running and I guess that’s the benefit of a true AirPrint printer. In the meantime, however, this solution works just fine. Do the Droid phones have a native capability to print?
Hey Patrick,
God news (that you’ve probably already discovered). The list has grown to include a buttload of Canons (yay) and Epsons (whatever). http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4356
And I like Lee’s solution. That is awesome. Investigating now…
-Jerry