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Comment by pseudosavant | Hacker News Reader

I don't own any Macs, but I have setup far more printers on other people's Macs than on my own PCs. No Windows user ever asks me for 'tech support' to get a printer working. But the few Mac users need it all the time.

It is so odd to me that setting up a printer on Mac is so much harder for the average user, apparently. My current printer worked by just plugging it into the computer. Windows downloaded the drivers and it all just worked.

If your printer is well supported out of the box in CUPS you might do ok, but that does not seem to be that common if your printer is new-ish.

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> My current printer worked by just plugging it into the computer

I couldn't figure out where the disconnect between your experience and mine was, as I never have to help Mac family and friends, but the windows users wind up throwing their printers out the window.

The disconnect must be that - you're plugging them in! I haven't used a USB printer in over a decade, and back when Idid the printer makers were almost hostile to Mac users, so their drivers sucked, installed crapware, and frequently hogged resources so they could throw up a splash screen to sell you new ink/toner.

For probably close to 15 years, and especially in the decade since the advent of AirPrint, I stopped doing all of that. Printer gets on the network, macs all see it as an AirPrint device, and it works.

I find Ethernet, when available tends to work out best... I've yet to see a wifi printer that works well/consistently. Though lots of higher end routers can act as a USB print server as well.

WiFi printers work great--assuming you assign them a static IP address and you set it up by telling Windows/OS X to use that IP address as the port address instead of any goofy auto detect nonsense pushed on you by the manufacturer.

I usually just put printers in the reserved list on my router to keep getting the same IP. Haven't really done wireless on a newer than 5yo device, but have had a couple issues back then just in maintaining a connection.

My wired printers have had no issues though, even from wifi devices.

Honestly in recent years I haven't even had to do that. Got a small-office style HP printer/scanner, it's on wifi, everything just seems to be able to talk to it. Couldn't be happier...

Hmm, odd. I bought the cheapest AIO printer with wifi at Walmart years ago and it has worked flawlessly. Besides the ink cartridges being terrible. Connectivity though...perfect.

> The disconnect must be that - you're plugging them in!

Right when Apple switch to having the only plug on MacBooks be USB-C, I was talking with an (older) friend who I often end up as tech-support for. He'd just upgraded his iPhone and his MacBook, so I repeated the popular-on-HN-at-the-time line about how it was bone-headed that you could buy a top-of-the-line iPhone and a top-of-the-line MacBook, and you couldn't plug one in to the other without buying a separate adapter. He said it had been years and years since he'd wanted to actually plug his phone in to his computer; he uses WiFi.

I recently bought a new printer. I plugged an ethernet cable in to it and the router. And yet, its menus still tried to get me to go through WiFi setup, I had to press "back" and go through some hoops to tell it "no, just use the Ethernet plug". That's not a great design--it should have just detected that I'd plugged something in to the Ethernet port, but it helps show:

Somewhere along the way, WiFi absolutely became the expectation, wires became an oddity, and a lot of us techies missed it.

> Somewhere along the way, WiFi absolutely became the expectation, wires became an oddity, and a lot of us techies missed it.

It's also extremely common now for people to use "Wi-Fi" as a synonym for "Internet connection"

After a decade without a printer at home, I bought one this year for WFH, a HP Tango X. "Installing" meant getting it on wifi via WPS, after which it was immediately visible and usable on Mac, iPhone, Android. On Windows it was visible under printers, but it started to download some extra HP software before it would allow printing for the first time.

I don't see the point of plugging a printer into anything. How would I plug it into my phone?

> How would I plug it into my phone?

Not to discount your experience at all, but my immediate reaction to this was to think "Why would I ever want to print from my phone?" I think the answer to both of our questions is that other people have very different workflows, so something that might be a show-stopper or a killer feature for one person could be an afterthought for another.

> "Why would I ever want to print from my phone?"

Because the thing I want to print is already on my phone? I don't move stuff that's on my laptop that I want to print to my phone first, nor the other way around. Both seem somewhat pointless.

Routers still support WPS?

You and me must live in alternate universes, as my experience is the opposite. I have used Macs for 22 years or so and cannot really remember ever having much problems with printers. Usually drivers are already installed and it is plug and play.

With Windows you often had to fiddle with installing drivers. Don’t know the current situation as I use Windows as little as possible. Every time I have to use Windows I think my blood pressure goes up a few nothces.

With Windows the drivers are mostly downloaded on-the-go through Windows Update.

No Windows user ever asks me for 'tech support' to get a printer working

I wish. We do have some problems on Windows, but the Mac is so, so much worse. I get the feeling its one of those things that Apple just doesn't value.

I do wonder why there hasn't been a universal printer protocol? You would think that we could get to some set of properties that could describe any printer.

I mean there is Postscript. But the problem with standards, there are many to chose from.

Postscript doesn't do the printer configuration. I remember Printer Job Language, but I don't think that allowed control of printer features.

PPD does.

AirPrint is such a protocol and well-supported. They've just moved on to network printing instead of continuing to work on USB printers.

10 years ago - it hasn't worked in practice unless you remember all your capitalized Apple buzzwords and are willing to pay extra for it (I say this in disappointment, I was able to be a full time dev _because_ of iOS 4.2 and AirPrint)

I have the opposite experience. At my previous work (new job has no office, nor printers) windows ran the full gamut of "things that can go wrong with printers": couldn't detect them, could detect them couldn't print, could print before - now can't. There wasn't a week that went by when the person who was blessed by the printer gods didn't randomly change.

In comparison, zero issues on my Mac laptop.

What kind of problems have they had (on Macs)? I've never had an issue in 14 years of OS X (now macOS) as my daily driver with printers.

Except for one HP printer because HP made everything too complicated (I was able to find a way to connect directly to it rather than through their software, I just had to corrupt my phone with their app to get the printer on the network the first time).

It's the reverse for me. Setting up a printer on Windows is impossibly difficult. On Mac you just plug it in and it works.

Same with me. Strange how people can have such radically different experience.

I've got Macs, ipads, Windows and Android at home and they all work without issue or additional setup with the Brother Wifi printer I have. None is better than any of the others, it's seamless with all of them. (Actually, thinking about it, I'm not sure I've ever printed from the ipads, since they're my kids' and I don't use them much, but the other three work fine).

I have been using Mac for 14 years. There was exactly one HP printer that worked with Mac straight off the box. For every other printer, whether at office or home, I had to perform some additional manual steps to print using my Mac.

So, looking at the various comments, experiences do seem to vary widely.

Just to contrast, I never had a problem with WiFi on my Macs, while one of my colleagues had incessant problems with one of theirs!

I've been a fan of HP Laser printers connected via Ethernet. Every device I've tried connects and loads the drivers without issue (including a macbook).

Aside, I really wish Google hadn't removed the Print options from Android/Chrome. Being able to buy tickets and send them to my printer from my phone was awesome... having to save/share links and go to my desktop to print something, less so. I know I can often show a code on my phone, but there are times and places where wifi and mobile connections aren't reliable.

Not really in favor of HP over other mfg's, only that I've had far fewer issues with them than any other mfg for laser printers at least. Been using a color laser (m451nw) for about 5 years now. I don't really print that often, a couple pages a month, and always had issues with ink printers gumming up when I'd go a couple months without printing anything.

> Aside, I really wish Google hadn't removed the Print options from Android/Chrome. Being able to buy tickets and send them to my printer from my phone was awesome... having to save/share links and go to my desktop to print something, less so. I know I can often show a code on my phone, but there are times and places where wifi and mobile connections aren't reliable.

I generally just print to a PDF on my phone (or download them directly that way, if that's an option). That way, I can get them scanned even if I don't have internet. That said, I did use to worry about my phone running out of battery or something, but at this point I haven't had my phone run out of battery while I'm out for several years now, so it isn't much of a factor for me.

It's not gone, it's become annoying: go to the three dots menu and select "share...". Then look for a thing that says "Chrome" with "print" under it.

Perhaps GP was referring to Google Cloud Print, which is being sunset at the end of 2020?

Okay, it's still in chrome, just not in brave or others...

Also cloud print is going away, which is disappointing. Have my hp eprint setup with it so I could print from anywhere.

I spend my time working with printers and I don't see much distinction between macOS and Windows anymore. Where the big difference comes is different printer manufacturers. The worst of them produce bug ridden, bloated and privacy invading software.

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