Printing Rant

[ahalowell]

Hello,

I gotta blow off some steam today.

I just recently switched from an iPhone to a Nokia Lumia 1020. All-in-all, I am reasonably satisfied with my decision to switch. The single biggest issue I have is the inability to print wifi from the phone.

I do not understand. I was able to print from my iPhone from the minute I got it. I have three wifi printer in my house and I cannot use any with my Windowsphone.

My short term fix is to email the document(s) to my tablet (Windows 8.1 Asus) and print from the tablet. Very cumbersome solution. And why can I print from the Windows tablet but not the phone?

I will not be buying another Windows phone unless they fix this issue soon.

... phew, okay, I am glad I got this off my chest. Thanks for listening.

Al

 

[JaiMento]

Windows Phones don't support WiFi Direct yet. That's why you can't wirelessly print.

 

[oditius]

First off, I have a HP D110 ePrinter, So I can just email what I want to print to the printer. But for the easy part sitting near my wifi printer, I use PrintHand

PrintHand | Windows Phone Apps+Games Store (United States)

 

[sd173]

I don't know it this app is only available for just WP7.x or also WP8.x, but if you have a Brother printer, you could try this:
http://windowsphone.com/s?appid=3e0bce36-ac60-e011-81d2-78e7d1fa76f8

 

[Intrepid00]

Airprint pictures come out looking terrible so I never really missed it. I mean really, really bad. I hated the crap out of AirPrint. I have the exact same picture at my office with one through AirPrint and another from my Surface. The Surface one is high quality while the AirPrint is not only not full sized but the colors are all washed out and has artifacts from compression that AirPrint does. It would be pretty big deal if they could get Windows print API into a Windows Phone some how.

 

[ahalowell]

But I am talking about printing documents, not necessarily photos. I would like to be able to print an email or string of emails from my phone. I print photos from my desktop to my Epson photo printer. it is really quite frustrating to not be able to wifi print from my phone. Come on Microsoft!!!

Al

 

[Jonnny4]

You know the apps available on Android and iPhone not being available on Windows Phone is not the fault of the platform. The printer companies are to blame. The brother printing app proves my point. Most of these just use a wifi connection on the home network to print to the printer. The direct printing has only gotten popular in the last 2 years and really only had major traction in the last year, android 4.3 and 4.4 has the drivers available for epson and hp. I can say at one point there was a google cloud print app but I never used it. The people you need to ***** at are the printer companies and not Microsoft. For all you know the direct printing could be something they are adding in 8.1 that hasn't been announced yet.

 

[ListenUpGuys]

Maybe Microsoft are trying to help the environment by stopping people from printing out all their emails so easily. Yay Microsoft. Now if they'd just remove the feature from Outlook too.

 

[sd173]

Now if they'd just remove the feature from Outlook too.

Then a whole lot of people would be pretty angry.

 

[T1Cybernetic]

It's a little bit annoying not being able to direct print but I just email them to my printer or PC instead Same end result I suppose!

 

[tgp]

You know the apps available on Android and iPhone not being available on Windows Phone is not the fault of the platform. The printer companies are to blame. The brother printing app proves my point. Most of these just use a wifi connection on the home network to print to the printer. The direct printing has only gotten popular in the last 2 years and really only had major traction in the last year, android 4.3 and 4.4 has the drivers available for epson and hp. I can say at one point there was a google cloud print app but I never used it. The people you need to ***** at are the printer companies and not Microsoft. For all you know the direct printing could be something they are adding in 8.1 that hasn't been announced yet.

Yes, but that doesn't change the end result. The OP could print from his iPhone. He cannot print from his Windows Phone. It doesn't make any difference who's fault it is. I think that too many WP apologists don't seem to realize this. And FWIW, there are reasons that the printer manufacturers don't support WP. For example, it could be because:

1. The market share doesn't justify the investment.
2. There are not sufficient APIs to make printing work properly.

Both of these possible reasons have been, and still are, issues with developers.

 

[ahalowell]

At the risk of beating a dead horse, I disagree about who's "fault" it is. When I took the iPhone out of the box and turned it on for the first time the printing capability, by Apple, not by a single printer manufacturer, was already enabled.

In addition, I am using an Asus T100TA tablet/notebook running Windows 8.1. It can print. If this tablet can print then the Nokia 1020 should also have this VERY SAME capability. It is strictly a Microsoft problem, period!

Al