The iPhone was never designed to print with a cable, but several wireless options are available.
Printers are one of the most maligned and problematic pieces of technology, often being a limitless source of errors, even when you’re sure you’ve done everything right. If you have an older printer without modern wireless capabilities, you may have tried printing directly from your iPhone using a wired connection, to no avail. But why does the iPhone hate printer cables so much?
Since late 2010, the iPhone and iPad have been compatible with AirPrint, Apple’s wireless printing standard. There are standalone apps from brands like HP and Canon that offer wireless printing options for non-AirPrint printers, but the catalog of models they support doesn’t go back that far. Unfortunately, as wireless technology has become dominant, those with older printers have largely been left behind, especially when it comes to printing from an iPhone.
Understanding your printing options from iPhone
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As anyone who has struggled with setting up a printer knows, each model requires a unique set of drivers. For desktop operating systems, these are easily downloadable from the manufacturer’s website, but the same cannot be said for iOS or iPadOS. Apple’s mobile devices do not support native drivers, which is an intentional decision because managing the many variations of device drivers would be very complicated. This means that if you plug your iPhone into a printer – which is possible using special adapters that enable USB On-The-Go (OTG) – it won’t know how to talk to it.
Unfortunately, even apps can’t overcome this obstacle. Although some Android apps support direct USB printing, none exist on iPhone – a notable drawback between Android and iPhone. Apps like PrintCentral Pro, PrintDirect, and PrintCast can be somewhat useful, although they rely on a computer intermediary to print from your phone to a USB printer.
Likewise, you can use special software like Printopia to force a USB printer to appear as a wireless printing option by creating an AirPrint bridge, but this still requires a computer. At this point, you’d better email the document or photo to yourself and print it directly from the computer. There are even more advanced options, like using a Raspberry Pi print server, but upgrading to a modern AirPrint-equipped model makes more sense if you need to print from your phone often.
