The first patent shows us a method to circumvent the requirement of drivers for printers, when the driver is not on iPhone or iPod Touch. In practice, the user could be start the printing process, even in the absence of specific drivers, used a series of API based on a discovery protocol such as Bonjour, an Internet Printing Protocol (IPP) and PostScript Printer Description (PPD) useful for detect the printer. If the device is not yet able to interface with the printer, then the user could send the documents to print directly from here icloud and use a specific technology useful to start the process of printing directly from the “cloud”.
The second Apple patent
The second patent, shows a different concept to print wirelessly from iDevice, again without having to use specific drivers. To bypass the requirement of the driver, Apple uses a specific data store that can supply all the main features of the printer, such as resolution, color space, bit depth, input slots and many others.In this way, the device would be able to interface seamlessly with the printer.
Both patents fall within AirPrint functions already introduced by Apple with the new firmware for iPhone and iPod Touch.
