As an iPad owner, I share the
confusion of my befuddled peers who cannot understand why the Apple tablet,
which boasts miraculous capabilities, cannot perform a function that my 1995
Compaq somehow managed. The iPad cannot
print.
Apparently, “The iPad doesn't have built-in software to talk to
printers. But it does have software that
lets it talk to a Mac laptop. So to
print from an iPad, it first has to (wirelessly) ask the Mac, “Would you mind
telling the printer to print this document for me?” If the Mac has been set up properly to hear
the iPad, it will print out the document, because the Mac does have built-in
software to talk to printers.”
Though
Apple could have equipped the iPad with this competency, “that would have taken
up a lot of room on the iPad's flash drive, room that's probably better spent
holding apps, music, video and other more interesting stuff.”
While I prefer that the iPad preserve its capacity to accommodate my applications, notes, and music, I do wish the sucker could print. The device walks, talks, and squawks like a computer, so why not perform all the same functions?
However, as one article reminds me,
“the iPad is not designed to replace a PC, much
like a microwave oven can never replace a conventional oven. But it's quite a neat device, although, yeah,
printing is one thing it cannot do by itself.”
Last
week, I posted about the brydge keypad that transforms an iPad into a
laptop. As a highly functional yet
simple device, I would consider
condensing my personal technologies (and freeing some space in my charger
drawer) by retiring all devices other than my iPad. However, it is these limitations that remind
me of the iPad’s impracticality. Though
the compact, suave, and futuristic qualities of the tablet make it endlessly…cool…it
is not a sensible everyday gadget.
Thus,
I must retain my laptop and my overcrowded charger drawer.
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