Hacktivate AirPrint on Mac, Windows Shared Printers

[Paul Daniel Ash]

When Mac OS X 10.6.5 was released, support for iOS printing using AirPrint was mysteriously absent. It's not clear whether the omission was due to technical problems or patent challenges, but with the final Mac OS X 10.6.5, you could only print from iOS 4.2 to a short list of HP printers. Until someone put some effort into re-enabling it, that is.

Developers Steven Troughton-Smith and Patrick McCarron found a way to get AirPrint to work on Mac shared printers by restoring three files from earlier developer builds of 10.6.5 that had been removed or changed in the final release. AirPrint appeared to work reasonably well in the beta, and many observers surmised that it was removed at the last minute due to a patent troll who had asserted they had invented the technology. The re-enabling process isn't too hard - just a few Terminal commands and deleting and re-adding your printer - but the guys at Netputing figured out how to do it without using the Apple files in question, which could have raised legal issues. They're distributing it as AirPrint Hacktivator, and once you've got it installed on your Mac, your iOS device will think the shared printer is one of the supported HP printers that support AirPrint.

For Windows printers, there's a similar process for enabling AirPrint as a service under Vista, 7 and XP. If you decide to try and follow Jaxov's recipe, note that you need to run the command prompt as administrator in order to start the service.

Source: TUAW

[Happy Noodle Boy]

Man I played around with this on Windows a couple of days ago and I can get everything up to choosing a printer and clicking print but it stalls in connecting. It's going to be awesome once I figure it out.

PS: On Windows follow the instructions to the letter, don't skip on spaces especially when putting in the commands.

[zoso10]

Wow that was so simple and now AirPrint is actually useful. That took me 30 seconds; thanks so much Steve and Pat!!!!!!

[Cowboy]

That's awesome

[awesomeSlayer]

This is awesomeness!

[sucram6791]

yes! i didnt know if my printer would be able to do this but now i know it does!

[raduga]

This is awesomeness!

Please don't slay it.

[Rob2G]

Yes, this is awesomeness.

[bdaved]

Thia worked Great on my Windows printers,Thanks a million!!

[DarkDragonAn]

I thought every body knew about this. I had this on my mac for month's and it work like a charm, but your Mac need to be On. I wish Apple make it work out a your Mac/PC being ON. With the HP App you can print photos and scan without you Mac/PC being ON, so why can apple ask for this code and from HP to added to there iOS now that is a true AirPrint.

[Legend_master]

Have not tried this yet, but the write up is very nice and looks easy to fallow.

[EskimoRuler]

Sweet was Hoping someone would do something about the limited printers

[awesomeSlayer]

Please don't slay it.

I don't slay awesomeness. (Hint: My username means a slayer who is awesome).

[mombopete]

Awesome. Took less than a minute. Thank you.

[StealthBravo]

My printer already worked with AirPrint but this is a cool hack

[Happy Noodle Boy]

Holy crap I got it working time to NEVER EVER USE IT

[StealthBravo]

Holy crap I got it working time to NEVER EVER USE IT

I agree. I tried it once.

[NakedFaerie]

I have 2 network printers and neither will be detected so I can't print to either.
As they are network printers I can't share them in windows so still no printing from my iDevices.

Another reason why I'm still on 3.2.2 on the iPad and 4.1 in the iPhone.

[mikerlx]

The hp photosmart premium uses a free app in the app store that works universal. I am printing pics and docs from my iPhone 2g at 3.1.3! Btw app is called hp iPrint

[srbug]

Got it working no worries.

It's pretty pointless I need to have my laptop on to print.. Why wouldn't I just use my laptop to print in the first place?

This would be good (like others have said) if the Mac didn't need to be on. It's kind of a useless feature though.