(Time to read: ~3 minutes)
If you’ve been following Apple news for the past 8+ months, you’ve almost certainly heard of AirPrint.
And if your printer (like my 8-year-old HP LaserJet) doesn’t support AirPrint, you may have been researching printers that do – as I have.
In the process (since HP produced the first AirPrint-enabled printers) you may have heard of ePrint, and you may have wondered what the difference is.
You are now going to find out! (drum roll please 🙂 )
Apple AirPrint
When your Apple mobile device (e.g., iPhone, iPad) is on the same wireless network (WiFi) as an AirPrint-enabled printer, you can print directly from the mobile device to that printer – from at least some apps.
So far I’ve tested it with Pages (the Apple word-processing app) – actually printed out a page this way. And I’ve checked that the print option and my new printer appear in the following apps produced by Apple: Safari, Mail, Numbers, Keynote and Notes.
HP ePrint – Even Cooler?
Each HP ePrint-enabled printer gets to have its own email address. So you can mail whatever you’d like to it and it will print it out for you. Even better, when you send a document this way it doesn’t print out like an email (with sender, recipient, date, etc.) – it just looks like the document you wanted printed!
The best part is that you don’t need to be on the same wireless network as your printer – you just need to be able to access the internet (either via WiFi or through a cellular network).
So I can be waiting at a bus stop, or in an internet cafe, checking my email. If I find one that I want to print out to work on later (why I do this will be the subject of a future blog entry), I can simply email it to the printer, and it will be waiting for me when I get back!
Both are Helpful – How I Expect to Use Them
Apple AirPrint will be useful in the evening when I’m journalling using Pages on my iPad and I discover that I’ve written a project to do list that I want to keep in hardcopy on my desk for reference, while I’m using my iPad for other purposes during my workday.
I can just insert page breaks to isolate the material on its own page, then use AirPrint to print out just that page to the new printer sitting near me.
HP ePrint will be useful when I’m “on the road”. For example, when I go downtown to journal on my day off. If I create a new / revised project to do list then, I’ll just copy the material to an email and send it to the new printer and it will be there waiting for me when I get back.
There is one other, slightly odd use to which I’m imagining I’ll put this printer. John and I live on the fourth floor of a converted industrial building, which is also where his office is. My studio is four floors down, with literally tons of concrete in between, so we don’t share a wireless network. I’ve actually set the printer up in the upstairs space, because that is where I do most of my journalling.
Occasionally during the day I come across something that I want to talk to John about – an invitation to an event, for example. What I’ve done in the past is print it out and put it in the bag I use to transport items between the two units. But occasionally it gets overlooked or slightly mangled in the process.
What I’m imagining I’ll do with those invites now, is email them to the ePrinter upstairs, so the printout will be waiting for our evening review and planning sessions. The printer itself may even become a gathering and storage place for other things we want to talk about at those times (e.g., items that came by post).
I’ll let you know if things turn out differently than I’m currently expecting….
Warmly,
🙂
Glenda
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