Some are only good for printing photos, though the best of the current lot, such as the Epson, HP, and at least one other yet to be reviewed, can print office files, Web pages, and documents from the Cloud as well as photos, and you can even initiate scans from your handheld through these apps. Most, like Epson iPrint and HP ePrint, are made by printer manufacturers and print only to their brand of printers. The first are mobile printing apps, which enable you to print from an iPhone, iPad, Android, or other mobile device to a printer on the same Wi-Fi network as the mobile device on which the app is installed. The Rise of Mobile Printing Apps There are two types of print apps. The culmination of this concept to date has been the HP Photosmart eStation, the first standalone family-room Web-enabled printer, which even has a removable controller that can double as a tablet and e-reader. Granted, some of the Web apps featured here are eminently practical-there's nothing too sexy about printing out bills of sale or NDA forms-but they represent the liberation of the printer into a standalone device that can connect directly to the Web and print content from it. The rise of printer apps-both for printing from mobile devices and for pulling content off the Web for printout-is another. 3D printing is one exciting development: see 3D Printing: What You Need to Know for a primer. After Steve Jobs stepped down as Apple CEO in August, The Onion ran a parody in which incoming CEO Tim Cook insisted that Apple's future was in printers, and that the release of the iPhone 5 and other upcoming products would be put on the shelf for at least four years while the folks at Cupertino developed home and office printers with "cutting-edge" features, such as fax functionality.īut the tide may be turning for this underappreciated product area. Printing isn't generally considered the most popular or sexy corner of the tech world.
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