iPrint Photo software for iPhone & iPod Touch

[Jim_C]

Hi,

Hewlett Packard recently released an iPrint Photo "app" for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch enabling users to print 4x6 photos via WiFi to many supported Hewlett Packard inkjet printers....  See www.hp.com/go/iprintphoto for more info.

Early posts in various forums show users are excited by this easy option to print their photos.  Most users with a supported Hewlett Packard printer seem to find the app "just works".  However, some some users are asking questions...

I opened this thread to collect questions and answers to help iPrint Photo users and perhaps help the app development team improve the app over time.

I'll kick off the forum with one question I've seen elsewhere re: "whats required for a printer to work with the app". 

Several factors may influence whether iPrint Photo will "just work" with your printer:  

1) First, the printer model should be supported by the app

See a list at: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01619067&lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&product=3857218

2) Your iPhone or iPod Touch should be connected to the same network as your printer. 

You can check or set the WiFi connection of your iPhone or iPod Touch via its "Settings" / "WiFi" / "Choose a Network" menu path...  The Network name should match the WiFi network name that your wireless router is set to and that your wireless computers use when they can print to your networked printer.  

If your printer is directly connected to the WiFi network using the printer's internal wireless support, you can easilly verify the right network name from the printer by checking the printer's front panel display ( under tools or reports & "network settings" ) or by printing out the printer's network configuration page via the same front panel menu or the front panel button(s) for printing this report.  

If your printer is connected to the network by a wired Ethernet or other supported connection type (see below), its probably best to check the network name or "SSID" on your wireless router or on your wireless computers that are able to print to your printer over the network.

3) Finally, the "connection type" used to connect the printer to the network must be compatible. Supported connection types vary depending on your network and computer gear:

- iPrint Photo should work with supported printers direct-connected to the network by the printer's internal WiFi or Ethernet connection.  I believe this is the only printer connection that will work reliably if your network gear is non-Apple and your computers Windows-OS based (because non-Apple network gear and Windows computers don't reliably support the Bonjour printer discovery components that iPrint Photo relies on)
- If you use an Apple Airport or Time Capsule router and have USB-connected a supported printer to the router to share it over the network... then the iPrint Photo app should be able to find and use the printer...
- If you have shared a supported printer from your Mac with a recent version of OSX, the iPrint Photo app will probably discover and print to the printer (though your mileage may vary due to differences in differing Mac OSX releases, firewall software settings, etc).   

If you have iPrint Photo questions, I hope contributions to this forum will help answer them! 

Jim C 
( sharing his personal opinions, not those of his employer Hewlett Packard )

[ChadS24]

Having a slight problem with the iPrint app and hoping that someone might have some insight.  I have an Officejet L7680 and am able to print to it with no problem, however when the pictures are printed they don't fill up the entire and leaves a white border around the picture.  The paper I am using the the HP Advanced Photo Paper (4x6 Glossy).  Is anyone else having this problem and/or does anyone know how to fix so thatit prints correctly?

[SassVideo]

Even though the HP site says that my printer (Photosmart C5283) is supported, there is no way to print the photos using the photo tray; it only prints to the main tray.  I double checked that the photo tray is my default printer, however, no matter what I try, iPrint will only print to the main tray

Message Edited by SassVideo on 12-28-2008 04:06 AM

[mratcheson]

Hi.  I have an HP OfficeJet 7410 connected directly to the network over a wireless connection.  My router is a DLink.  I downloaded and installed iPrint Photo on my iPhone 3G.  When I tried to print from iPrint Photo, it was unable to see the OJ 7410.  I'm able to ping the printer from my iPhone, and I'm able to connect to the printer's web interface from my iPhone.  I have no problem printing to the printer from a Vista desktop over a wired connection, or from a MacBook, which is connected over a wireless connection.  I tried switching the OJ 7410 to a wired connection, (it supports both) but it made no difference.

The OJ 7410 is listed as a supported printer.  

I've discovered that if I enable printer sharing on the MacBook, suddenly iPrint Photo sees two OJ 7410 printers.  One  shows the ip address of the printer, and the other shows the name of my MacBook.  When I try to print to the icon associated with the ip address, it says it is printing and then completed, but nothing happens, the printer doesn't even make a sound.  When I print to the icon associated with the MacBook, it prints fine.

This seems to imply the OJ 7410 is not advertising using Bonjour.   I need to turn on print sharing on a MacBook for the iPhone application to recognize the printer.  The problem is that when the MacBook goes to sleep, the printer is no longer available.

If anyone knows if there is a way to enable Bonjour on the OfficeJet 7410, or any other way I can get iPrint Photo to see it without going through the MacBook, I'd be very grateful to hear about it. 

Thanks!

[Wi-Fi-Guy]

The Bonjour Responder should be on by default on the Officejet 7410.  An easy way to check is to see if the Officejet 7410 appears on the Bonjour bookmark on your Macbook's Safari browser.

Regards / Jim B

[drgardner]

The issue does seem to be the Bonjour advertisement.

In my case, I have a HP Business Inkjet 1100 (listed as a supported printer) attached via USB to an Apple Airport Extreme. I'm able to print to this device on all the devices (all Macs) on the network by adding the printer through the System Preferences Printer/Fax tab. However, it doesn't show up when using iPrint.

If I select the "Share this Printer" option in System Preferences, it immediately appears in the iPrint app. Turn off the option, and it disappears.  

I went into the Airport Extreme Utility - it does provide an option to share printers attached to the device globally using Bonjour (which would get around the issues of needing to have one of the computers running and awake to support the sharing). However, selecting that option creates an issue where the Airport Extreme wants a global address for the printer that leads into a bit of a fire drill with dynamic DNS and so on. Not sure that I'm up for getting that setup, at least today. 

[mratcheson]

Thanks, wasn't aware of the Bonjour bookmark before.  I needed to enable it in Safari preferences.  I don't find anything similar in iPhone Safari, it would be a useful addition.

The OfficeJet 7410 does show up in the list of Bonjour devices from the bookmark.   So my MacBook doesn't have any problem detecting the printer via Bonjour.

Our two connected Tivos also show on the list.  My iPhone doesn't show, should it?  I don't have an app like Air Sharing installed, so it doesn't seem odd to me that the iPhone doesn't advertise, but I figured I'd mention it.

Thanks again, a handy tip.  If you can't tell, I'm pretty new to things Apple, though not to computers and networks.

[mratcheson]

Another observation.  I downloaded Bonjour Browser and ran it on my Mac.  When printer sharing for the OfficeJet 7410 is enabled, the printer is listed under Internet Printing Protocol and HTTP.  When it is disabled, it is only listed under HTTP.  An iPhone app called mDNS Watch reports the same results as Bonjour Browser; the OJ 7410 disappears from Internet Printing Protocol when printer sharing on the Mac is disabled, but remains listed under HTML over HTTP.

I'm guessing the Bonjour bookmark in Safari is detecting the printer through HTTP (Port 80) and iPrint Photo is using IPP (Port 631).

[Wi-Fi-Guy]

I'm pretty sure Bonjour (aka mDNS, aka Zero-Config) uses UDP port 5353.  I believe the iPrint Photo application is using printer port 9100 (I think all networked HP Inkjet Printers use port 9100 for printer data).

HP networked printers will also advertise their HTTP interface (and other network services) from Bonjour. 

Regards / Jim B

[mratcheson]

Thanks, I decided to do some port scanning.  Not sure what to make of it, if anything, but here's what I found. 

Since when my Mac has printer sharing enabled for the OJ 7410, iPrint Photo sees it through the Mac, though not independently, I compared the ports detected on the Mac with and without printer sharing enabled.  Turning on printer sharing opened TCP ports 515 (spooler), 631 (Internet Printing Protocol), 139 (NETBIOS Session Service) and 445 (Microsoft-DS).  UDP ports 137 (NETBIOS Name Service) and 138 (NETBIOS Datagram Service) were also opened.  UDP ports 631 (IPP) and 5353 (Bonjour/mDNS) were open before I turned on sharing.

The OJ 7410 has TCP port 9100 (HP JetDirect) open, and also UDP 5353.   It has TCP 139  open, though no TCP 631 or 445.  UDP 137 is open, though not 138 or 631.

This may not be exhaustive, since I may not be scanning for all relevent ports.  I needed to add TCP 9100 and UDP 5353 to the software I used for it to detect them.

I'd be surprised if the NETBIOS and Microsoft stuff is pertinent to this, and if I'm correct,  unless I'm missing a relevent port to scan, it seems to indicate Internet Printing Protocol is the reason  the iPhone sees the printer through the Mac. I did see something somewhere on the Apple web site that said Apple Printer Sharing uses port 631, though I can't find it at the moment.

Port 9100 is open on the OJ 7410, but for some reason, iPrint Photo isn't finding it, at least not in my environment.

Thanks again.

Message Edited by mratcheson on 01-02-2009 10:50 AM