Steve Jobs on wireless, driverless printing

By on Nov 23, 2010 at 1:39 PM
mobile November 23, 2010

Haven’t got your Steve Jobs email fix for the day yet? Good, because another one is making the rounds and this time it’s about Apple’s AirPrint feature. If you have been keeping up on the saga, Apple announced AirPrint with support for some select HP printers, but it also indicated you’d be able to print to any shared printer on your local Wi-Fi network. At iOS 4.2 launch, however, only the HP models are officially supported (and enabled). Here is a reported email to Steve Jobs on the issue and the response:

Dear Steve,

You got me all hype about AirPrint. Now with iOS 4.2 released, I find out that I can only print on 11 select printers. Seriously?!

And, Steve Jobs’ alleged reply:

Lots more coming soon. It’s what it takes to make a giant leap to driverless printing, which is huge.

There are unofficial ways to re-enable support for shared printer printing on Mac OS X 10.6.5 and your iOS devices, but for the purists out there, maybe word of this feature slowly being reintroduced in a “huge” way will give you peace of mind.

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24 Comments

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  • sirpaul

    I can print on my HP flawlessly, as long as my laptop is on when I do it. It is shared with the network.

    • Anonymous

      don’t believe it Sir Paul unless you have a program that emulates a mac system.

      • sirpaul

        Do you want me to make a YouTube video for you, zenrag? Why would I lie…
        And no I don’t have OSX on my laptop.

      • Anonymous

        Do tell Sir!

        Please help us out then. There are several of us online that would love to print from our ipads wirelessly on our networks.

      • sirpaul

        @zenrag
        If I have time this weekend, maybe I will :P It’s quite simple though – just make your printer shared by going into properties.

  • http://twitter.com/stevegaron Steve Garon

    Why would you print anything theses days anyway?? Save trees, nobody should print anymore !

    • sirpaul

      Yeah, why waste a 0.5 cent paper and “save a tree” when you can just keep your computer on and use electricity instead? It’s not like the use of electricity harms the environment at all, right?

      (please note: sarcasm is present in this post)

      • Anonymous

        If that’s the case, then don’t turn on the computer either. Or buy a cell phone; radiation into the atmosphere. Oh, and no more spaying of ANYTHING..OZONE!!!

        Live in a mud hut, on the edge of the equator I say…

      • sirpaul

        did you see the part where I said I was being sarcastic? I do what is most convenient. Obviously there are limits – I won’t be dumping motor oil in my backyard because I am too lazy to properly dispose of it – but this whole saving trees by not printing doesn’t really work out. I need paper for anything that is used for more than just reading (assignments, reports etc.).

  • http://twitter.com/Essmithsd Eric Smith

    I can’t think of a time where I would need to print anything off of my iPad. Maybe that’s just me.

    • Donny

      Its for when you need hard physical evidence of your 3 star victory on Angry Birds.

      • http://twitter.com/drcaveman2010 Jason Kahn

        Save the screen shot an email

  • Anonymous

    Printing is huge??? No my Pen!s is huge…

  • Goodman

    Are the “lots more” printers the models we already own, or new models that we’ll have the privilege of shelling out bucks for, for the three times a year one wants to print from an iPad? I guess we’ll just wait (and wait and wait) and see.

  • Dara

    Driverless printing on 11 printers from a specific company?

    Sounds more like single driver printing, with more printers that use that driver on the way.

    That’s not new, that’s how it started. Are we sure Stevie knew which direction he was facing for that “giant leap”?

  • Kyle

    AIRPRINT is for standalone wireless printing. If you use a shared printer connected to your mac or airport device, then it will print just fine….to any brand.

    • http://twitter.com/drcaveman2010 Jason Kahn

      I would love to know how you accomplished this I am running Windows 7 64Bit it have tried the work around posted online. My iPad does not recognize any of my shared printers.

      • Kyle

        I don’t know about Windows 7, I run a mac….sorry man.

  • http://twitter.com/drcaveman2010 Jason Kahn

    Please ignore was meant as a reply to kyle

  • Homestar726

    Apple doesn’t fail to disappoint again. Air-Print… Buy a new printer…. Airplay…. Sorry, buy the apple tv. Can anyone says vista ish?

    Buy new or go away, no what I signed up for when I bought these expensive products!

    • Kyle

      Actually airplay works just fine if you are using it to stream music to an airport express….but video obviously needs some kind of video output like HDMI….hence why it needs an Apple TV.

  • Homestar726

    Apple tv 2 I mean. I already shelled out 400$ less than a year ago for an apple tv.

  • Sonya

    I wish Hp would support the Mac OS more, I have to get a new printer because Mac 10.6 isn’t supported but all versions of Windows are. Black Friday at Staples here I come.

    • http://twitter.com/Obj_me Michael Hurlburt

      Have you tried open source linux driver ports? They work great on os x!

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