Till now, HP has held a huge advantage over it’s printer rivals when it comes to printing from the iPad — because even though rivals have made strides with their own apps (like Epson’s slick iPrint app) HP’s printers remain the only ones with AirPrint, which is tied directly to iOS and allows printing from within apps, without having to use an intermediary app (eg iPrint).
Having the Maps app on the iPhone is a lifesaver for me. Not only does it help me navigate my way around places I don’t know, but it’ll also tell me how to get there when I leave the house.
However, trying to read directions from an iPhone while driving isn’t ideal, and it’s certainly not safe. Fortunately, iOS 5 allows you to print your directions from directly within the Maps app as long as you have a printer compatible with AirPrint. Here’s how!
![Apple Wants To Kill Off Printer Drivers Once And For All [Report]](http://cdn.cultofmac.com/wp-content/plugins/lazy-load/images/1x1.trans.gif)
![Apple Wants To Kill Off Printer Drivers Once And For All [Report]](http://cdn.cultofmac.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/AirPrint-on-iOS-4-e1313444173492.jpeg)
There will soon be a day when a driver is not required for printing. Wireless printing has become more of a household standard as new printers roll out with cloud technology, and Apple is looking to make the printing experience as painless and seamless as possible.
Two interesting patents applications were recently filed by Apple that detail printing protocols and APIs that don’t require drivers, with more of a focus also being placed on printing from the cloud.
So you’re a cutting edge, Post-PC consumer. You’ve bought into the Cloud, have all the latest apps on your iPad, and you work on the go. Just tweet this, email that, and print out an electronic boarding pass before you head to the airport.
Not so fast on that last step. There’s a tantalizing Print button in many iOS apps these days, but very few printers are usable without some extra work first. Unlike printing on the Mac or PC, AirPrint (the iOS-based printing system) is still not yet a fully realized solution. Fortunately, workarounds are available.
Definitely a major bag of goodies announced by Apple at WWDC today, but one item many expected further info on was not discussed: the ability to finally print from an iPad or iPhone using AirPrint and your existing printer shared by your Mac. A bit surprising that this important feature is still missing in action.
2010 was a huge year for Apple news. As we close out the year, we look back at some of the year’s biggest stories and what they might mean for 2011.
iOS 4.2.1 was just released, but already the rumor mill is churning about iOS 4.3… and it looks like it might arrive before the end of the year, much earlier than anyone had previously thought.
According to sources, Apple plans on releasing iOS 4.3 on Monday, December 13th… just three weeks after the debut of iOS 4.2.1.
One of the most frustrating aspects of iOS 4.2 and OS X 10.6.5 is how Apple’s new wireless printing standard, AirPrint, was gimped at the last minute from running on pretty much every shared network printer connected to a Mac to only officially supported on 11 AirPrint-compatible printers.
One iPad owner named Stan was so frustrated, in fact, that he wrote to Steve Jobs. “You got me all hyped about AirPrint. Now with iOS 4.2 released, I find out that I can only print on 11 select printers. Seriously?!”
Seriously, replies Steve, before reassuring Stan that the move to driverless, wireless printing is a vast undertaking, and that iOS 4.2’s AirPrint support is only the first step.
Last week’s great disappointment was the discovery that Apple had mostly pulled AirPrint support from OS X 10.6.5, which would allow you to print documents directly from iOS to almost any shared network printer. Native AirPrint support was trimmed only to a small number of AirPrint-compatible HP printers, and while hacks exist to get AirPrint support back via the command line, they’re a little beyond the capability of most users.
Enter FingerPrint, a new application from Collobos Software that enables AirPrint printing over Bonjour for many of the omitted printers. It accomplishes its neat trick by fooling Bonjour into broadcasting your normal printer in such a way that iOS 4.2 can see it.
Right now, if you have Mac OS X 10.6.5 and an iPad running iOS 4.2 GM, AirPrint’s a bit of a mess: some people are reporting that it is working, but many are not having any luck.
We suspected that it was just this sort of compatibility problems that caused Apple to scale AirPrint support back to AirPrint-compatible printers at the last minute, but developer Steven Troughton-Smith has some instructions on how to bring it to your Mac under OS X 10.6.5 and iOS 4.2 GM.
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![How To Print Directions From The Maps App In iOS 5 [Tips]](http://cdn.cultofmac.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Screen-Shot-2011-12-05-at-17.03.24.jpg "Printing-Maps-iOS-5")
![Ten Big Apple Stories of 2010… And What They Mean For 2011 [Year in Review]](http://cdn.cultofmac.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Gizmodo-iPhone-Jason-Chen.jpg "Gizmodo-iPhone-Jason-Chen")
