Apple’s AirPrint technology is a nifty tool that lets you send print jobs from supported iOS devices including an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad running iOS 4.2.1 to a supported internet-connected printer. Unfortunately right now that means that a handful of HP printers work out of the box. While Apple had originally promised that AirPrint would also work with almost any printer connected to your Mac or PC, that feature isn’t currently available… from Apple.

It turns out there are at least two third party apps, however, which will let you send print jobs to any printer connected to your computer. Printopia gets the job done quite nicely for OS X, while AirPrint Activator works for Windows.

Printopia costs $9.95, and lets you print from any printer connect to your Mac… or any printer connected to your network. It doesn’t matter if it’s physically connected to your computer via a USB cable or through an Airport wireless connection.

You can also use Printopia to “print” to a PDF file and send it to your computer or upload to Dropbox.

AirPrint Activator for Windows works with Windows 32-bit and Windows 64-bit systems. The free app lets you send print jobs to any shared printer on your network. You’ll have to enable AirPrint on your Windows firewall, but that’s about it for the restrictions.

Update: TUAW also spotted a new free app for Mac called AirPrint Hacktivator. I’ll give you one guess as to what it does.

via Download Squad

Brad Linder

Brad Linder is editor of Liliputing and Mobiputing. He's been tinkering with mobile tech for decades and writing about it since...