Talk About A Mobile Office: AirPrint To The Rescue
November 23, 2010
The iOS community seems to be on the verge of yet another app race, and this time it's all about who can get out the AirPrint-capable app the fastest. Previous battles for developers to get the spotlight all to themselves included the iPhone 4 LED flashlight flood and Google Voice app resubmissions.
With the release of iOS 4.2.1 yesterday, including Apple's AirPrint technology, a new era has begun. While major word processing and PDF reader players get a move on to release updates, there will be a median for much simpler app builds to flourish.
Apple has already updated iOS Safari and their mobile iWork apps, Pages and Numbers with AirPrint capabilities, but that's just not enough for most, so in come apps like QuickPrint, iPrint, and Print.
What's the big deal? No longer will you need to transfer documents or photos to your computer or online storage service to simply make a physical copy. AirPrint allows you to completely bypass your computer, and with so many more apps on iOS capable of creating much more than just simple text documents, users are more likely not to need the function of other desktop apps to finish a project.
AirPrint is cool for home and home office use, right? If you're a traveling businessman, think of the bigger picture. Let's say you have an analysis to give to a colleague or boss that you finished up on your long flight, but he doesn't want it just emailed to him because he plans to make copies and disperse it throughout the board room in a few minutes. Have an AirPrint compatible printer nearby? Voila!
So far, there isn't much to gripe about, except the lack of AirPrint printers on the market thus far. Only a dozen of ePrint furnished HP printers are currently certified for AirPrint use. Apple had originally planned to offer the ability to use a printer connected to your Mac OS X system, but removed it at the last possible moment.
So where does that leave most of us? Do we just have to go out and buy a new printer? If it was just some last minute bugs Apple noticed, hopefully they'll add it back in 10.6.6. Until then, or if it never sees the light of day again, there's a solution: AirPrint Hacktivator.
AirPrint Hacktivator is a small app that re-enables AirPrint for shared printers on computers running Mac OS 10.6.5. Download the app, launch it, and slide the hacktivate switch to on. After that, you'll need to remove and reinstall any printers you wish to share to your iDevices using System Preferences --> Print and Fax.
Make sure "Share this printer on the network" is checked in the Print and Fax section. Using the latest release (1.6), I had no troubles getting my couple year printer to work, however, there are no guarantees. Just like the developer mentions, it works fine in tests but don't point the finger at me if things go completely awry. I'll be de-hacktivating before applying 10.6.6, and I'd recommend the same, just to be safe.
The final question is, should you splurge on these simpletons or you just wait for Documents To Go Premium, Quickoffice Connect Mobile Suite, ReaddleDocs, GoodReader, and other full-featured favorites to be updated?
