Mobile Magazine » wireless printing

Google Cloud Print enables iPhone and iPad printing thanks to HTML5

Michael Kwan — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 04:28:43 +0000

So, you’re on vacation on some brilliant beach, casually sipping on an umbrella drink when you get a phone call from your desperate co-worker back home. He needs the TPS report he sent you last week and he needs it right now.

Even if he is having a case of the Mondays, Cloud Print from Google could come to the rescue. The idea is that you can boot up the HTML5-based Gmail mobile site on your iPhone, iPad, or Android 2.1 device (or anything else that does HTML5, really), and send the request to print over your cellular data connection.

Boom! Back at home base, your co-worker sees the TPS report spitting out of the printer connected to your cubicle. Done and done. This goes so much further than the AirPrint solution from Apple, because you don’t need to be connected to the same network as the printer and you don’t need a special AirPrint printer; it just works, so long as you’ve got the printer connected to an Internet-capable Windows PC.

Google Cloud Print isn’t new, but the mobile variation is. Look for the Google Team to roll out this feature in beta for select American users later this week.

[BGR via Google]

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iOS 4.2 developers experience Wi-Fi issues, iPad update delayed

Fabrizio Pilato — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 16:22:56 +0000

The iOS 4.2 release we were expecting to roll out today for the iPad has hit a wall. According to developers on Apple’s own discussion boards, there has been Wi-Fi connectivity issues where a 4.2 iPad would disconnect or not connect at all to the Internet after establishing a connection. No Internet on the iPad is a bad thing.

As far as AirPrint is concerned (Apple’s wireless printing for iPad) we still have no news on that, as the Mac OS X 10.6.5 update had no support for it. If we’re to see an AirPrint option, it wouldn’t be until 10.6.6, and that could be quite some time from now.

4.2 Wi-Fi issues should be patched by next week, allowing for another week of testing and a release in the final week of November. Still as promised in the month of November, just not as soon as we’d all like. MacStories has provided a video of the issue in action, or if you’re a dev you have probably already seen this for yourself.

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Apple’s iOS Update: Pre-release rumors

Sufyan bin Uzayr — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 00:00:10 +0000

One thing that all of us do quite frequently (though some do it less frequently than others) is printing – documents, photos and what not! Apple users are perhaps expecting a treat coming their way as far as printing is concerned, and if rumors are anything to go by, the next software update for iOS will feature wireless printing, for not just iPad but even iPhone and iPod Touch. But as the old story goes, rumors aren’t to be trusted fully.

Remember Steve Jobs’ intro to iOS 4.2? Among many other things, a feature called AirPrint was announced, which was expected to enable the device to print without the need for any additional drivers. But at the end of the day, AirPrint was just another shared printing mechanism that would help you utilize printers shared via a network or at best HP printers with AirPrint compatibility.

Apparently Apple’s shared printing, even before gaining maturity, has reached its last legs. Judging by what Mac App programmers have to say, and considering the fact that the latest Apple’s developer support documentation makes no reference to AirPrint, it may very well be possible that Apple has decided to pull the plug off shared printing over the network. Even the latest Mac OS update (10.6.5) also reportedly offers no support for shared printing via AirPrint.

So as the scenario stands at present, it seems AirPrint will be in business only through the erstwhile released and still-in-market HP printers which offer native support for AirPrint. Obviously, this isn’t going to benefit the wide array of Apple users worldwide. As a result, such developments have sparked discussions and speculations over the success (or failure) of printing under the iOS. This could pose a serious issue for companies like Lecere (LCRE) who are waiting on wireless printing capabilities for the iPad for POS.

The update for iOS 4.2 has already been released for the developers and it is now only a matter of time before it reaches the end users and the demise/revival of printing using Apple devices is finalized. Until then, it is merely speculation!

Source: WIRED Gadget Lab

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iOS 4.2 will bring AirPrint wireless printing to your iDevice

Michael Kwan — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 03:15:00 +0000

One point to having wireless devices like the iPad, iPhone and even the iPod touch, is that you can do just about everything you want without being “plugged in.” Soon, you’ll be able to do one more everyday thing on the these devices, and that is to print.

Wireless printing will come courtesy of the new Apple AirPrint wireless printing app slated for release later this year as part of the iOS 4.2 iOS update. November to be precise, and it will that wireless tree killing button to your iDevice. If the iPhone 4′s camera wasn’t so bad, you may have actually wanted to print a photograph wirelessly. I can see this being a big hit for wireless transactions and providing a real, non-virtual receipt.

It looks like the Print app on iTunes store won’t be very usefull after this.

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