In a move that’s sure to be welcomed by customers of both parties, HP is reported to be working with Apple to allow users of Mac OS X Leopard to instantly receive the the latest versions of HP’s printer drivers over Leopard’s built-in Software Update mechanism. In seeding Leopard build 9A559 to its developer community last week, Apple listed only two known issues with the software, one of which instructed testers with HP printers connected to their system to perform a custom install of the next-gen operating system and de-select the HP printer drivers in the installer. “The HP printer drivers will be delivered post-install via Software Update”, the company told testers.
… software update wasn’t open to 3rd party developers.
People should realise now that to become a third party, you just have to pay enough into Apple’s back pocket, giving you a nice competitive edge over everybody – Case in hand: EA with iPod games, AT&T for iPhone, and now HP and Apple Software Update.
just another reason to love linux distros.
if done right, one can just add a entry in the installer/updater and sit back while the system keeps itself updated.
It’s because people trust Software Update, most people install everything that comes through it without blinking.
If all kinds of software updates comes through it, quality control will be worse, and the trust will disappear.
I hope it never will be like the linux distros. Where I can’t really trust what comes through it, I have to read up on every update before I install it.
I never had a problem with an update through Software Update yet, but I have read other people on the internet has. So, it’s hard even for Apple to quality control updates, I don’t want 3rd party software being part of what my grandmy click that “OK” button for.
does this work with Leopard?
Seams Apple is readying its Golden Master and doesn’t want to be held back by HP’s drivers.
Reminds me of Vista, which MS sent to the presses and had updated drivers ready via Windows Update at availability.
I wouldn’t want seams in my golden master… isn’t that what all this furor over the Halo3 casing is about, Seams in the discs?
It seems weird that HP’s drivers that give basic printer functionality should need any updating for Leopard. Apple uses CUPS as the backend for printing. Unless they have changed that, printing should still work. Also, if Apple uses CUPS for printing, shouldn’t the printer drivers written for the Mac work on Linux machines using CUPS?
I’m more surprised that after 30 years, the printing industry still haven’t pull their head out of their behind and come up with a standardised language which allows direct printing to their devices without the need of employing proprietary/closed source drivers.
Postscript is only seen on very high end printers; I hope that maybe XPS will turn into that magic silver bullet where by rather than being at the mercy of the hardware company, people can just go, purchase a printer, hook it up, and voila, it “just works”(tm)
if you can do lock-in, you do lock-in, that seems to be the mantra for every industry as far back as the industrial revolution. only when customers, be them other industries that need their parts, or end users, rise up and cry for standards, will they show up. and then only for that single industry.
yes, its a practice thats officially frowned upon by economists as they are monopolistic. but as its a cheap, and effective, way to increase income, it will be done for the foreseeable future…
hell, just like printer brands talk about the need to use same brand ink and similar parts, car brands tells you to use their own car parts. and its a much older industry. but i dont think they ever had, or tried to misuse, a law like the DMCA…
if you can do lock-in, you do lock-in, that seems to be the mantra for every industry as far back as the industrial revolution. only when customers, be them other industries that need their parts, or end users, rise up and cry for standards, will they show up. and then only for that single industry.
yes, its a practice thats officially frowned upon by economists as they are monopolistic. but as its a cheap, and effective, way to increase income, it will be done for the foreseeable future…
hell, just like printer brands talk about the need to use same brand ink and similar parts, car brands tells you to use their own car parts. and its a much older industry. but i dont think they ever had, or tried to misuse, a law like the DMCA… [/q]
There is a slight problem with that conclusion; these printer companies gain nothing out of using non-standard protocols; I can understand the ink thing – sell the printer at a loss and make up for it via ink. They gain nothing using proproprietary protocols and raise the cost of producing these printers.
Rather than just using the ‘standard’ they have to employ programmers to write drivers, then test them etc. etc. What is easier; one hand you have all the bureaucracy and on the other hand, printers being made and all the software already pre-provided on the plaform?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PostScript
while the source may be questionable, it seems that postscript has a bit of license cost attached to it.
and its one complex language to by the looks of it.
in comparison, it seems that what most in-house drivers do is take the data, turn it all into a kind of image, and send said image data to the printer.
There is an alternative being promoted by Microsoft – XPS; Xerox has already signed up to it. XPS, unlike OOXML, isn’t an unmitigated disaster when it comes to documenting the format and better still the licence is open and shut – its free for anyone to implement at not cost.
feel free to call me a burnt child, but even if its xml based, its coming from microsoft. how is the documentation for it? the ooxml one is indeed a disaster.
as in, it does not help that its open for use, if one have to read something thats as readable as the bible in cryllic, written in mirror writing, using rot13…
“I’m more surprised that after 30 years, the printing industry still haven’t pull their head out of their behind and come up with a standardised language which allows direct printing to their devices without the need of employing proprietary/closed source drivers.”
That’s why we have every application outputting Postscript for printing by default in UNIX world for decades. 🙂
“Postscript is only seen on very high end printers; […]”
I’ve recently seen a “cheap” Brother multifunctional device (laser printer, scanner, fax, copier) being able to understand both standard Postscript and PCL.
It seems to be normal for users: They see a shiny device, buy it, then start complaining about missing driver support. But it was cheap, at last. 🙂
The buying decision usually is not lead by hardware support, but instead by the shinyness ot the device or the package, or the claims on the package, or the fantastic low price.
Compliance to existing and well proved standards seems to make printers more expensive. (You could extend this statement to digital photo and movie cameras, MP3 players and other funny devices, too.)
I’ve used Postscript capable printers only (HP Laserjet II, 4, now 4000, Lexmark Optra S series meanwhile) without any problems together with UNIX workstations and Apple’s PowerBooks without any problems, without having to google around for strange printer drivers which need to be placed somewhere into system directories…
“[…] I hope that maybe XPS will turn into that magic silver bullet where by rather than being at the mercy of the hardware company, people can just go, purchase a printer, hook it up, and voila, it “just works”(tm)”
I really hope the situation will develop this way. Today, while most home users favour multifunctional devices (inkjet printer, scanner), sometimes it’s a bit complicated to get these crappy things working. While some products are supported well both on Mac OS X and UNIX/Linux, others won’t even provide basic functionalities. Most of them even aren’t capable of outputting text (without driver). Hey, even cheap dotmatrix printers could do that! 🙂
To come back on topic: Automated driver support would expecially be interesting to allow users buying and using (!) bleeding edge technology, e. g. printers that just occured on the market. They would not need to purchase a new OS (and a new computer) in order to benefit from new devices – after all, the system installs the correct driver (from the manufacturer of the device) automatically and lets the user “just use” the device, instead of forcing him to sit down and google around for drivers that promise to make the printer work.
Unfortunately it is a patent riddled format controlled by Adobe.
I remember having an HP printer that was meant to understand PCL but never actually worked as documented.
Price is the almighty deciding factor; for me, I have a cheap $39.95 printer; it does what I need – and it doesn’t have all the added BS like ‘scanners’ and ‘flash readers’ which are surplus to the ultimate purpose of the machine – to print documents.
But when is paid $30K a year with lots of bills, its unaffordable to purchase something that maybe be superior. Its the printer manufactures who choose fail so support PCL or Postscript.
Well, most camera’s and mp3 players are either PTP or MTP compliant, which *NIX can support out of the box once one compiles the respective libraries.
For me, I’m at university but if in future I purchase a printer, I’ll purchase a Postscript compliant one – makes life easier, no matter what the platform is.
This isn’t about HP and Apple. HP happens to be the most commonly used Printers in the market. They are the test client for the new Software Update.
It could have been Brother, Canon or anyone else.
Regarding CUPS and Apple: The PPD is one matter, the Colorspace and Apple Color Management is another matter.
Be thankful this guy is getting paid well, the software is ubiquitous and people will continue to see improvements, now at a more rapid pace.
i think the reason why apple is cagy regarinding opening up Auto update is that most mac users will trust anything that pops up in the auto update. So they wanted to ensure that whatever is chucked out is ok. I agree that it’s great that apple have started opening this up, as microsoft has done with some manufactures and their drivers through windows update.
However i would still prefer apple to remain cautious and not go too fast with opening this up. I hope they vet everything. (Also i know that sometimes even apple’s updates have caused problems, but overall i think it’s very reliable)
i suspect your onto something there. apple has a user experience reputation to uphold. anything that can compromise that reputation, is to be avoided at all costs by the looks of it.