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Printing is a horrible experience these days. Even in a managed office environment, you're not safe from all the rough edges. - Drivers. Why does this still
by Steltek 6y ago
Printing is a horrible experience these days. Even in a managed office environment, you're not safe from all the rough edges.
- Drivers. Why does this still feel so difficult? Just define a public bytecode API (no, not PS) and be done with this already.
- Ink, paper, etc. Even if you shell out $Texas for a laser printer, you still have to manage paper and then it's probably not any good for photos (probably the only thing I want to print).
- Protocol/tech stack straight out of the Old World. Cloud Print seemed like the Dropbox to printing's SMB. Proprietary but less terrible.
- The waiting for anything to happen. If I have to go to the trouble of using your proprietary driver to do anything, can't the printer at least leverage more of the host computer to speed things up?
The whole process feels only slightly less finicky than using a 3D printer.
- ccozan 6y agoUsing IPP isn't that bad. There are no drivers involved. And printing can work via a cloud ( but some software involved to manage your printers ). TBH businesses that do serious printing do no buy low end inkjet, but mid to hi end printers that have this features ( and many more) and mostly are covered thru some service contract with a 3rd party which manages them.
- donatj 6y agoMy work makes a big deal about setting up a printer. IT needs to add each printer by request and they come around with a flash drive of drivers. It hasn’t actually been that hard for a while, I’ve added the printers I’ve needed myself via AirPrint, no drivers necessary. I feel like the printer world got easy and no one told anyone.
- remir 6y agoAirprint is pretty neat. Used it on my iPhone a couple of times and it's a pretty painless experience. No apps/driver to download. You press "print" and it discover the printer and does its thing.