airprintprinting
My parents have both recently gotten iPads, and have found that our networked laser printer, a HP Color LaserJet 2600N doesn't seem to support airprint. Is there any way to upgrade the printer to support the protocol, to save them replacing the printer altogether?
The printer works great wirelessly on my Macbook Pro (2010) and installed happily with no drivers.
Thanks!
As noted in my question the printer requires a firmware upgrade to become AirPrint compatible. What is not clear on HP's AirPrint website is how one goes about updating the firmware. Playing with the menus on the printer I finally found that attempting to access the web apps menu causes the printer to check if it has the latest firmware. The printer then determined that it did not and proceeded to download and install the firmware update. After the update the iPad lists the printer as an option for printing. My programmer brain was probably making this too hard looking for a non-consumer friendly way of doing the update. That said can't say opening up the web apps menu is the most obvious way to check for a firmware update.
Most receipt printers I have seen use a wired ethernet connection, so you could add a slick Lantronix xPrintServer which uses AirPrint to avoid needing a computer running for your iOS devices to print to these specialized printers.
Image from the vendor site linked above
There are several reviews of this product, and the unit is physically about the size of three iPhone 4 stacked in a neat pile. It is intended to support between 7 and 10 printers before you need to buy a second device. I am not clear whether you can set this up from iOS, but it works well once you have it set up.
The day will come when label printers ship with wireless chips and AirPrint embedded, but that day is not yet here.
Best Answer
I don't know that you'll be able to install firmware into the printer that lets you accept jobs directly from iOS. However, if you have a Mac running on your network, you could try something like AirPrint, which runs on your Mac and makes all the printers available on the Mac available to Airprint as well.
This works great for me with my old Mac Mini that I run as a server and an HP CP1515 printer. This might not be an option if you don't have a machine available all the time, but it's a great solution if you do.