Seeking Tablet Info - RECOMMEND ME APPS!

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if wi-fi is on you should get a popup when networks are in range asking you if you want to join one. Tap the network you want and enter the passkey if necessary. iOS will remember any connections for future reference. You can also manage your wi-fi connections from the settings.

Printers are the nonliving spawns of Satan.
 
My printer is an all-in-one model, it does everything except wifi.

I still don't understand how the iPad cannot connect to an internal IP address on the network to an open network computer and send print jobs without going through a shitload of hassle. I can setup a Win 98 computer within the hour on a POS workstation and get this done without a problem but the iPad cannot work without an air printer? It's ridiculous.

And setting up proxy services on my PC to emulate this function isn't ideal.

How I'm able to listen to a radio station on the other side of the planet in SECONDS on this this but not be able to connect to a local network printer 10 feet away is beyond me.

More research to be done tonight....

Take 3 steps front, go 4 back because of poor Apple vision.

UPGRADE EVERYTHING
 
Well, if your router were an Airport it wouldn't be an issue. Apple has always been about the proprietary hardware. Its not like that is some sort of secret.
 
Yeah well that whole concept is retarded and shouldn't be accepted as, "che sera sera"

My iPad is connected to my home network with the exact same concept as my 2 home laptops....WIFI.

WIFI router hooked up directly to network printer.

A WONDERFUL TECHNOLOGY THAT WORKS AS IT SHOULD FOR 4 WINDOWS OS BASED COMPUTERS.

But noooo.... I need to hold Apple's hand to make the iPad perform basic functions such as printing. Install a virtual bridge here they say. Get a newer printer with DIPSHIT AIR TECH they say, now it's get a DIPSHIT AIR ROUTER tech they say.

People, I appreciate advice, I really do. But make sense. Not only for me but also for yourselves along with your wallets.


Anyways, I did have fun installing a few apps from the app store last night, lots of good things to come from there... but I never thought I'd be wasting 2+ hours wondering WTF does it take to make an IPad print like a normal device.
 
Just remember that Apple has a 14-day return policy. I know the iPad does a lot, but if it's not going to do what you want (or will but not without giving you a migraine), then don't hesitate to turn it back in and get something else that does.

Lest anyone think I am being snarky, this is the same advice I would give anyone about any product*.

--Patrick
*or boyfriend/girlfriend, for that matter.
 
Honestly, the printing thing has never been an issue. I don't have anything on my iPad that I would need to print.
Yes, it does suck.
No, it's not a coincidence that it's harder to make Apple products play nice with windows products. But that is what happens when you try to integrate technology from competing companies. They aren't going to make it easy for you because they're trying to schill their own products.
 
...what?

:dumb:

What does integrating technology have anything to do with an iPad sending out print jobs through a wireless router to a network printer it already has access to? Why even bother with DIPSHIT AIR TECH?

Let's be honest, Apple sells devices that cannot print without you needing to upgrade your other shit to match their limitations or requiring you to buy apps to accomplish the simplest things. This would be the equivalent of Windows not implementing the Spooler service allowing you to print and going "TROLOLO, give me money to be able to print." "Ooooh, if you want the internetz too, we'll throw in TCP/IP for half price."

Comon.

I was hoping for actual solutions, not being marketed more Apple products to be able to do standard tasks.

Going to have to waste more time tonight to find a solution to this retardation. Man, these iPad jokes are so completely warranted... you'd think they'd fix this by the ipad 3

but watch out, retina display! so many pixels your eye cannot even detect! maybe my print job is somewhere in there


LSMS

IPAD 3 = "Still doesn't come with standard printing tech available since DOS but hey... buy more of our products to be able to."
 
My printer is an MP560. Not on the list of AirPrint-equipped printers. I did the steps in my previous post and can print just fine from my iPad. Money spent on apps to do so? Nothing.

Like I said, I turned on the printer's wi-fi before I started those steps.
 
My printer is an MP560. Not on the list of AirPrint-equipped printers. I did the steps in my previous post and can print just fine from my iPad. Money spent on apps to do so? Nothing.

Like I said, I turned on the printer's wi-fi before I started those steps.
His printer is not wifi capable. He'd have to connect through a router.
 
His printer is not wifi capable. He'd have to connect through a router.
Since I had to install the software and configure the service on the PC instead of the iPad, I'd still reckon this would work. I had to set up the guest account to get it working, but all I did there was turn it on.
 
Sounds like you bought the wrong product for you needs, Jay. Apple didn't promise network printing on the iPad for all possible conditions. Apple products are not even designed for all possible conditions. That is what Android and Windows are for. Those operating systems try to allow as broad use as possible. Apple's strategy is to try and optimize performance for a limited number of situations rather than be all inclusive but more prone to hiccups.
 
The reason the iPad doesn't print and your windows computers do is that at one point you installed a printer driver for one of your windows computers, and they are all sharing it. Printers do not speak the same language, each one has it's own API and you can't run a canon using an hp driver, for instance.

Air print is apple saying, "look, this is stupid. We're not going to force our customers to load a new driver on every iOS device they own just so they can print to a new printer. Instead we're going to define a common language, and if you printer makers implement it then the iPad will print to it."

Yeah, it means you either need to buy a new printer that knows this language, or buy an app that speaks your printers specialized language, or install software on your pc that translates between the AirPrint language and your printers language.

Apple is not about backwards compatibility. They aren't content to bloat iOS devices with literally gigabytes of printer drivers just so they can talk to the hundred most popular printers. It's absurd that they even have to, after decades printer manufacturers still insist that their individual way of telling a printer how to put ink on paper is better than everyone else, and maintaining a proprietary standard.

It's not any better on android devices, and the printing situation for ios devices is already leaps and bounds better because there's a standard printing API.

Yea, its a pain for customers. But guess what? Most people are only printing out of habit. You've got a high resolution display in your hand, and Internet connectivity at your fingertips. You can move it from room to room, and even take it out of the house and know its going to last all day.

I'm interested to understand what you are so keen to print that this is becoming such a major issue for you?

If you're trying to capture information for later, use Evernote, Dropbox, or one of a hundred other methods of storing and retrieving snippets of info you need.

If you're trying out a new recipe, take the iPad to the kitchen. It wipes off if you aren't a terribly messy cook and if you are then cover it with Saran wrap. Problem solved, the touch screen still works even.

If you need to give a piece of information to someone else, email it and let them decide if they really need it in dead tree form or not.

There are good reasons for printing, of course, but it seems like you're overreacting. You haven't said anything about the bridge dark audit has mentioned.

Do you need a solution, or are you merely whining for the sake of whining?

Sent from my frickin iPad where adding proper punctuation is more work than it should be. Add your own apostrophes where iOS didn't do it for me.
 
Sadly, you're not revealing anything new to me and the answer to this question did not get answered... at least not in the form I wanted it to.

Why can't Apple get their iPad to properly send out print jobs through the WIFI connection to a network computer now at the iPad 3 stage? And how is that people have created a chargeable App to provide this so called function?

So, are these people bullshitting me with this app's magical properties or is Apple short-changing me? Furthermore doesn't Apple approve Apps in their App store and get a commission out of Apps being sold? Intrigue, there is.

I call douchbaggery, right here and right now.

Oddly, I rarely print and fully plan to use it as you mentioned but sometimes, I need to send a print job to where I need to (such as printing out a report for someone else and generic paper for other people/departments). I don't need to be reminded every so often, oh yeah, I can't print, lawlz "Apple".
 
I'd rather not have to depend on 2 proxy services to perform this task of printing for me. One on one of my home PCs and the other on a work PC as this tablet will eventually replace my laptop.
 
So you believe that apple should reserve three gigabytes of your iPads flash memory to store all the printer drivers of the printers people might use? Your iPad comes fully equipped to print to newer printers whose manufacturers have chosen to support the iPad. Why do you insist that apple should put in the effort to support your printer - and by extension everyone else's printer - rather than turning the table around and insist that printers support a common printing language?

Do you believe that your printers particular language is the one true printing language? Is this a religious belief you've gained through study and prayer? If not, why are you so hung up on installing a print bridge on your computer to translate between apples language and the printers language, or going out and buying a $100 air print compatible printer, or buying a $10 app that does it?

I mean, wow, this is really bothering you, isn't it? It's as though you believe apple is laughing at you and dangling your printer just out of reach, and that all they need to do is flip a bit and it would work, but they're not just to spite you.

They aren't going to write all those printer drivers. They aren't going to force everyone's iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch to carry all the possible printer drivers. They added printing to iOS devices and are telling manufacturers how to be compatible. They don't believe they need to do more. Those customers for whom this is an important issue will spend the money to get a new printer, or the time to install an appropriate bridge. Those who don't think it's important wont care. It seems you are in the third group, not important enough to make it work even though it's trivial, but important enough to whine about it.

There's a reason for this lack of support of your chosen printer. Its because your manufacturer chose not to include AirPrint compatibility, and apple chose not to spend engineering time writing a driver just for your model of printer. There are a multitude of ways to overcome this limitation, but yes, they rare effort and/or money on your part. I suppose you'll just have to decide how important printing is to you, then expend that amount of effort to get it working, or live without it.
 
I like how Steinman's entire explanation is "Apple doesn't want to" when Android does it just fine.
Android doesn't do it just fine. Not until you install a Linux printer driver for your particular printer. It might have been easy for you depending on your printer, but it's not all roses on that end.

And yes, it's entirely because apple doesn't want to. In the same way they believe that blu ray isn't worth supporting, they believe printing is only worth marginally supporting. It seems their idea is that the iPad replaces paper for most uses.
 
I'd rather not have to depend on 2 proxy services to perform this task of printing for me. One on one of my home PCs and the other on a work PC as this tablet will eventually replace my laptop.
I will be very surprised if you succeed in replacing your laptop with a tablet, much less the iPad or an android device. It does about seventy percent of what I use a laptop for, and I suspect for most people it would probably replace ninety five percent of what they use a computer for, but you strike me as a person who actually uses their computer for more than just email, browsing, and office applications, and if so you'll find it doesn't do many things that you laptop does.

Still, they're getting closer and closer. It's obvious apple is moving their desktop operating system and their tablet operating system closer and closer together. Microsoft is doing something similar with windows eight, but in a much more conservative fashion.
 
I know it's already been said, but I'm going to say it again. Tablets are not meant to replace a laptop, or any full computer. Tablets fill a different purpose, and are not going to be able to fill every need that a laptop would.
 
That's basically the gist of it. Tablets aren't intended to be all purpose for everything. Frankly, I can see exactly why they aren't in any hurry to natively support printers. Tablets are mainly meant to give you productivity functionality on the go and gaming to a lesser extent.
 
We do not yet have a tablet in our household. But when we do, rather than replace any of our computers, it will most likely replace all the paper we used to waste...printing a recipe just to carry it 30 feet into the kitchen (rather than running back and forth), reading news/listings/weather, doing crossword puzzles/searches (or the equivalent), etc.

--Patrick
 
Air print is apple saying, "look, this is stupid. We're not going to force our customers to load a new driver on every iOS device they own just so they can print to a new printer. Instead we're going to define a common language, and if you printer makers implement it then the iPad will print to it."
This sentiment could get spread around a little more, don't you think? Video drivers, Automobile OBDs, ink cartridges, cell phone chargers (I hear the EU finally did something about this one!).
Sent from my frickin iPad where adding proper punctuation is more work than it should be. Add your own apostrophes where iOS didn't do it for me.
There are those times when it helps a little TOO much, aren't there? ;)

--Patrick
 
This sentiment could get spread around a little more, don't you think? Video drivers, Automobile OBDs, ink cartridges, cell phone chargers (I hear the EU finally did something about this one!).


--Patrick
So did the united states. With the exception of apple, all of the major phone manufacturers have adopted the micro usb as the standard.
 
The problem I have with my iPod Touch (or "iFaux-ne") is the keyboard. Way too small, even for my relatively small fingers.
 
This sentiment could get spread around a little more, don't you think? Video drivers, Automobile OBDs, ink cartridges, cell phone chargers (I hear the EU finally did something about this one!).
We've already achieved the first level of interoperability, thanks in large part to Microsoft with the early versions of Windows. It used to be that every program had to write their own print driver, so autocad had their set of supported printers, and wordperfect had their own set of supported printers, etc. MS added a layer of translation so they could both write to the windows print API, and then the job of print drivers was foisted on the printer manufacturers. OS X has a similar printing API, and linux/unix has CUPS.

Unfortunately we need to go the next step - we are currently writing drivers for each device/platform/os. So for each HP printer, there's a windows driver, an OS X driver, a linux driver, and even an iOS app. Not only that, but there isn't one HP driver for all their printers - each of their models has slightly different APIs that require a different driver. If the industry could get onboard with one printer API, then everyone could write to that same API and it would simply work, regardless of device, operating system, platform, or connection method.

There are some existing APIs many printers understand now, especially network printers, but the manufacturers (and consumers) demand more features than these APIs support, such as ink levels, scanning, faxing, etc, and to some degree printer manufacturers prefer to keep things incompatible so people have a hard time switching once they've invested in a particular printer company.

Unfortunately air print is not the answer. Not only is it bare bones, but Apple doesn't freely give the spec away. People have reverse engineered it a bit, but Apple is doing what it always does - controlling it tightly and limiting it to those they deem worthy. It gives a good consumer experience because it will just work since Apple demands so much of those that they officially support, but it's anti-competitive, which limits it significantly.

USB has done a lot in this regard for smaller devices, like keyboards, mice, audio headsets, and even webcams can follow the USB class for their device type and when they do they don't require drivers to run - you just plug them in and they work. There is a printer class, but it's limited, and wouldn't apply to network printers anyway.
 
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