Apple to ditch printer drivers?

Cnet.

Filed on 14 September, 2010, the two patent applications were published by the US Patent and Trademark Office late last week.

Apple has a couple of patents that suggest cutting out the need for printer drivers, one of which involves a 'driverless printing technique' where the necessary information required would be extracted from the printer itself, writes Ubergizmo.

The second technique will sound familiar to Google users, as it involves cloud printing. The patent suggests that the printer data will be sent to the cloud, which would then generate the print data.

What that entails is that users send their document to the cloud, which will then convert it into the necessary data/format for their printer to print.

Conceivablytech reports that software drivers have been one of the big inconveniences in mainstream computing.

USB and Windows 98 began to turn the driver installation process from a considerable source of user frustration into what many perceive to be merely an annoyance today, but the original idea of the printer driver is still a barrier that prevents us from accessing printers from new types of devices, such as smartphones.

Apple believes that wireless printing or 'walk-up printing' is especially useful when a printer needs to be used only once or twice and a complex process of finding and installing a printer driver is not convenient.