Google is opening beta testing for Google Cloud Print via Android smartphones and Apple's iPhone. However, users need a Windows PC to try this out.
Google Jan. 24 said it is bringing its Google Cloud Print
beta to allow Android and iPhone smartphone users to print Google Docs documents and
Gmail messages.
Google Cloud Print is the company's solution
to allow any application to print to any printer from any computing device without
installing any software.
Google Cloud Print is a solution intended to enable
printing via Google's Chrome Operating System, the Web-based OS coming on
notebooks from Samsung and Acer later this year.
Google created Cloud Print because
it did not want to incorporate printer drivers for every computing device and
operating system based on Chrome OS.
Now Google is testing the software for corporate
mobility, according to
Google Cloud Print engineer Tyler Odean.
To use this service, users will open a document in Google
Docs or an e-mail in Gmail in the mobile browser from their phone and choose Print
from the dropdown menu in the top right corner. Users may also print PDF or
.Doc attachments by clicking the Print link that appears next to them.
English speakers in the United States on
their way to work will be able to print a Google Docs document or Gmail e-mail
message from smartphones based on Android 2.1 and later or Apple iPhone iOS 3 and
later. If all goes well, the printout should be ready for the user when they
arrive at the office.
However, and this is important (and ironic), users who want
to try this must connect their printer to Google Cloud print via a Windows
machine, which in itself requires work.
To connect a printer available on a PC to Google Cloud
Print, users must enable the Google Cloud Print connector in the Google Chrome
browser on Windows XP, 7 and Vista. Users may see full instructions
here.
Odean said Linux and Mac support are coming soon.
Google opened Google Cloud Print to users in the Chrome
notebook pilot program, via the
Cr-48 machine it gave out to thousands of
users to test.
Bloggers complained the solution was complicated to use,
but Google has said it will continue to refine the product. If Google does get this
right, it will change printing from being a tethered, painful practice to a
more liberating experience that paves the way for greater hard copy portability
in the Internet era.
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