Chris Smith
The first of the two patent applications, entitled “Walk-Up Printing Without Drivers,†reveals methods of circumventing the printer driver requirement when such a driver is absent from Apple mobile devices like the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, as well as Macs.
In the filing, first noticed by ConceivablyTech, Apple describes a new printing process for such mobile computing devices that would allow them to wirelessly detect a printer and determine whether a printer driver is installed.
The user would then be able to continue the printing job even without a driver by employing a series of APIs based on a discovery protocol such as Bonjour, an Internet Printing Protocol (IPP) and the PostScript Printer Description (PPD) file, which is used to detect the printer.
In the event that the device still fails to pair up with the printer, the user would have a third way of completing the print job — by sending the documents to the cloud and using cloud-specific printing technology to communicate with the printer.
Filed on the same day as the first one, September 14, 2010, the second patent, entitled “Data Formats to Support Driverless Printing,†shows a different driverless and wireless printing concept also explored by Apple.
The company suggests a new way for mobile devices to bypass the printer driver requirement by storing a specific data structure that would be able to specify the following printing characteristics when detecting a printer: “resolutions, color spaces, bit depths, input slots, face-up/face-down input orientation, output bins, face-up/face-down output orientation, duplex printing support, media types, copy support, supported finishings, and print quality.â€
A new “URF-supported key,†part of discovery and transport protocols, is also mentioned by the second patent. Its purpose would be to offer a “standardized set of capabilities that are supported by a printer†that would let the user “generate printer data for any type of printer†without actually storing any printer-specific details on the computing device in question.
The new wireless and driverless technologies described by these two new patents would complement Apple’s existing AirPrint capabilities for iOS devices and could lead to a future driver-free printing experience for most Mac OS X computers.
Apple has high hopes for AirPrint, but has run into a few snags in the transition to driverless printing. Late last year, one rumor suggested that Apple had run into intellectual property issues with the AirPrint architecture, a problem that could potentially be alleviated should the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office grant the above patents to Apple.
Meanwhile, printer makers such as HP and EFI have been steadily adding support for the feature to their printer offerings.
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Wesley Hilliard
Andrew Orr
Christine McKee
William Gallagher
Mike Wuerthele
19 Comments
If ever there was an industry that needs to have done to them what Apple did to the mobile phone & carrier cartel, it's desktop printing. Not that Apple should start making printers again (Macworld did a good article a few months back why this is a losing proposition), but the entire software stack is such a perpetual mess that we STILL can't reliably print what we see on the screen.
I don't know what the solution should look like, other than it should wrest control of the printing process away from the manufacturers and hand it over to the users. From finding/downloading/ installing the drivers to navigating the UI-nightmare print dialog boxes, it continues to be a wasteful chore, almost thirty years after the introduction of Postscript.
Neat stuff. Downloading printer drivers has always seemed like one of those inane hassles leftover from the 90's...I wish all the printer companies would just get together and make a universal language that is compatible with any computer/phone/tablet/device.
I'm admittedly pretty ignorant on how printer drivers work. But how complicated can it be to establish a set of common instructions for tray, color depth, number of copies, etc? Why is that even amongst the same company, each printer has its own driver? The tech industry seems to have already solved MUCH more complicated problems than that Can you imagine if, every time you went to the library or a friend's house or Starbucks, you had to download the driver to their wireless router? Nearly every I/O seems to have gotten plug-and-play except for printers...
For basic printing...most people don't need extra large drivers.
"I support this message"
2012
If ever there was an industry that needs to have done to them what Apple did to the mobile phone & carrier cartel, it's desktop printing. Not that Apple should start making printers again (Macworld did a good article a few months back why this is a losing proposition), but the entire software stack is such a perpetual mess that we STILL can't reliably print what we see on the screen.
I don't know what the solution should look like, other than it should wrest control of the printing process away from the manufacturers and hand it over to the users. From finding/downloading/ installing the drivers to navigating the UI-nightmare print dialog boxes, it continues to be a wasteful chore, almost thirty years after the introduction of Postscript.
Yea, printers (and their interfaces) always seem 10 years behind the rest of the industry. Things like scanning a series of photos/documents are still quite difficult for non-techies. It seems accepted that the UI for Re-sizing and other printing tasks is stuck in the 90's.
I wonder if iCloud APIs and the rumour of the IOS-based Time Capsule/Airport Extreme Base Station could come into play here.