14 DAY TRIAL // A developer claims to have heard from Apple Tech Support that "support for AirPrint on Windows and Mac has been cancelled," in a conversation carried out on the Apple Developer Forums.
Apple first demonstrated the new wireless printing capability on September 1st, scheduling it to arrive in iOS 4.2 this month for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.
A press release followed some two weeks later with Apple confirming the availability of an AirPrint beta in iOS 4.2 for developers.
At the time, the company promised Mac and PC compatibility at launch, in order to use otherwise unsupported printers.
"AirPrint is Apple’s powerful new printing architecture that matches the simplicity of iOS—no set up, no configuration, no printer drivers and no software to download," said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing.
"iPad, iPhone and iPod touch users can simply tap to print their documents or photos wirelessly to an HP ePrint printer or to a printer shared on a Mac or PC," Schiller added.
Then, earlier this week, rumors emerged saying that the AirPrint feature for printing from an iOS device to a printer connected to a Mac or PC had been scrubbed, according to AppleInsider.
The web site has published a screenshot of the aforementioned conversation where a developer claims to have been informed of the AirPrint cancellation.
He writes:
“So, here is the reply from Apple Tech Support when contacted:
‘Support for AirPrint on Windows and Mac has been cancelled. We will be in contact with you if another opportunity arises in the future.”
To be clear, AirPrint itself has not been cancelled, but rather only the feature that allows it to talk to Macs and PCs with printers connected to them.
The function should work with the small amount of HP printers that support the iOS printing feature out of the box (without having to be connected to a computer). Apple said that the following HP printer models are "some" of the currently available to support AirPrint:
HP Photosmart Premium Fax e-All-in-One Printer - C410 HP Photosmart Premium e-All-in-One Printer series - C310 HP Photosmart Plus e-All-in-One Printer series - B210 HP ENVY 100 e-All-in-One Printer Series - D410 HP Photosmart eStation Printer series - C510