Am I right in assuming that AirPrint will only work with compatible printers?

Also, it is not clear to me whether it will work with Ethernet printers on a wireless network or only direct to wireless printers.

AirPrint is all about not having to install printer drivers, correct? I can understand why this would be desirable for "iThings" and I guess it explains the compatibility requirement.

Well i think it will only work at wirless printers.

Originally Posted by RAC

Am I right in assuming that AirPrint will only work with compatible printers?

An article in MacWorld about 4.2 says:

As Apple announced on Wednesday, however, AirPrint will work one of two ways at launch: with a compatible printer from HP (and eventually, we presume, printers from other manufacturers) or with printers shared via your Mac or PC.

Not sure how his helps those with non-HP wireless printers.

does anyone know how it discovers available printers?....it would be nice if you could specify an ip or mac address rather than have the device and software try to do a search for the device on your lan....some of the printing software for other mobile devices is "dumbed down" and doesn't allow you to specifiy ip or mac address and it makes discovery problematic

It'll work with new HP printers, presumably any wifi printer on a wifi network, or any printer shared on a computer on your wifi.

Of course, there will still be people whining that it won't work with their 9 pin dot matrix serial printers and that the ipad is rubbish and will fail because of this glearing oversight.

Originally Posted by Prasius

It'll work with new HP printers, presumably any wifi printer on a wifi network, or any printer shared on a computer on your wifi.

Of course, there will still be people whining that it won't work with their 9 pin dot matrix serial printers and that the ipad is rubbish and will fail because of this glearing oversight.

Or they have the only printer in the world that somehow uses Flash to print.

How about people that have a printer connected directly to their network via Ethernet?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Sound like it works just like the print magic app already for sale in the app store. Ken, if your printer is in a network, it should find it and make available to print. You can download a free tester for the print magic app to see if it works with your network.


I think this is how it will work in air print from Apple.

Ian B

So I'm now confused about this air print in 4.2. I understood the fact that the iPad Air Print will only work with the listed HP wireless printers. But then someone posted that it will also work with a wireless printer on a wireless LAN. Well I have a wireless Canon Printer on my wireless LAN and my iPad can't find it. So did I miss read this or am I doing something wrong?

Originally Posted by RAC

Am I right in assuming that AirPrint will only work with compatible printers?

Not quite.

Also, it is not clear to me whether it will work with Ethernet printers on a wireless network or only direct to wireless printers.

Airprint will work on a wireless network.
I just set it up today.
This is what you need.

First you need an Apple computer that can either print wirelessly on your network or is plugged into a printer.

You then need to download and install Printopia on the Mac computer mentioned before (Printopia is $9.99 with a free trial demo.)

With Printopia running on your Mac you can stream print jobs through the Mac to the printer from your iPad.

I have an HP 3 in1 non-wireless printer plugged into the USB port of an Airport Express.
I print wirelessly from my Macbook Pro through the Airport Express to the printer.
Adding Printopia to my Macbook Pro allowed my iPad to stream print jobs through the Macbook Pro over the network through the Airport Express to the printer.
This is essentially what Apple said Airprint would do before they changed their minds.

I`ve printed over this wireless system through my Macbook Pro today very easily from the iPad.