Portable printer for an iPad?

[ddrueding]

As the title says. As portable a printer as possible that can still do 8.5x11 (preferably 8.5x14), preferably color, preferably wireless. Price isn't really an issue.

I don't have an iPad to play with at the moment, so I don't know if there are any special requirements.

Thanks!

 

[Mercutio]

You know iOS is barely capable of printing and even then it only works if you buy the goofy-ass printers that have been anointed to support the gimmick, right?

Here's the list.

There's an ipad 2 and a 17" Macbook Pro on my desk right now. I'm going to see how long I can leave them boxed up and ignore them.

 

[CougTek]

In that list, I've only worked with the HP LaserJet Pro M1212nf MFP. It was on a Wintel machine and it didn't explose when I printed a page.

 

[Mercutio]

This is entirely apropos. Particularly definition #2.

Note in context that the term was coined by an African American writer/cartoonist and given voice by none other than Samuel L. Jackson.

 

[MaxBurn]

Airprint capable printer - this is so stupid. There are jailbreak hacks allowing printing to any network printer you like.

Second problem, airprint requires WiFi. Problem is that neither the ipad nor the printer will provide a WiFi access point so you need to add one of those to the list unless you want to rely on joining random wifi networks while you are on the go. I am assuming this is a concern as you are wanting portable.

A possible workaround is running the airprint service on a laptop and providing a print server to any printer you like. This is a hack. Problem is I believe apple closed the airprint service loophole in ios5. Should work with anything 4.3 though.

Why did apple kill the airprint service? I guess they are getting kickbacks from printer manufacturers or something.

 

[LunarMist]

Most of those are sleeping with the fishes now. :cyclopsani:

 

[Santilli]

Hmmm. Another reason to love Appl.

David, would your Sprint Hotspot work to be able to connect the printer to the ipad?

My girlfriend was over this morning, and she wants to know if she can hook up an HP wireless
printer to her ipad. Grrrrrrrrr......

I guess I could give her the simple answer: no.

 

[LunarMist]

Interestingly enough, I have a printer that works with the iPad. Of course I have no iPads.

 

[ddrueding]

David, would your Sprint Hotspot work to be able to connect the printer to the ipad?

That is what I'm currently looking at, or rooting the tablet and making it the hotspot...

 

[time]

The only realistic solution I can see is to buy a cheap netbook with a big battery, such as the Toshiba Mini ($250), and run Fingerprint on it.

 

[Howell]

What apps do you want to print from? What apps even have a print button?

I saw some offering from Google to print emails or PDFs that would direct the print job from Google at your external IP but It sounds like that is too narrow an application for what you're looking for.

 

[ddrueding]

Yeah...that is one of the questions I have. Now that I have a better understanding, we'll see what I can find out.