Since the launch of the iPhone ten years ago, Apple’s mobile devices—along with their bespoke operating system, iOS—have become ubiquitous. They’re in our homes, our cars, our schools. On planes, buses, billboards and TV. They’ve even made substantial inroads into the enterprise, where Apple products had previously been regarded as niche devices. As a result, many admins have been caught flat-footed in supporting them, not least when it comes to enterprise iOS printing.
This isn’t necessarily because admins are reluctant to support iOS devices or iOS printing. It’s because traditional IT frameworks and print infrastructure just haven’t been up to the task. These infrastructures were designed decades ago with a static environment in mind—workstations on desks, basically. And while that environment hasn’t gone away entirely, the widespread adoption of mobile devices like the iPad and iPhone over the past decade shows how much has changed.
Today, enterprise iOS printing isn’t just a luxury. It’s an inevitability.
iOS Printing Problems
But that inevitability still doesn’t change the fact that enterprise-scale companies aren’t as prepared to support mobile printing as they ought to be. As many organizations have already discovered, basic iOS printing problems can arise regardless of whether you choose to have BYOD or company-issued devices or a mix of both.
End users don’t always understand the steps that are involved in supporting these devices in the enterprise (“But I can print just fine at home!”) either, which can lead to dissatisfaction and top-down as well as bottom-up pressure on admins to deliver some sort—any sort—of iOS printing capability.
AirPrint in the enterprise
Some IT professionals understandably make AirPrint their first port of call before implementing iOS printing. However, AirPrint is more of a consumer-oriented technology, and its entry into the enterprise hasn’t been totally easy or seamless. One big drawback is that printers have to be AirPrint-enabled to ensure native compatibility, which means shelling out for new premium hardware when your existing printers might be perfectly functional.
The alternative is shopping around for iOS printing solutions that bolt onto existing print servers. This approach fills your IT life with additional complications, such as having to use scripting and GPOs to manage printer driver deployment, creating a single point of failure, and cost and expense just to support iOS printing.
iOS printing solutions
The most cost-effective and future-proof iOS printing solutions for the enterprise are those that cater to all mobile devices, not just certain brands, and work seamlessly with all printers, even legacy models. And that’s exactly what PrinterLogic’s Mobile Printing does.
Our next-gen software requires zero client-side installation to deliver simple, full-featured mobile printing. There’s no app, no special device settings. No matter what OS they’re using, all authorized mobile users have to do is tap the “Share” button, then “Print,” and finally select their desired PrinterLogic printer. That’s it.
For BYOD and guest devices, it’s just as easy. They can leverage the proven email-to-print functionality of PrinterLogic’s Mobile Printing solution to simply send their files to a printer’s dedicated email address. There’s no need for them to be on-network to have reliable printer access.
Best of all, PrinterLogic’s Mobile Printing meets the most fundamental requirement of enterprise iOS printing: security. Admins have the ability to control precisely who can print what and to which printers, right down to the detailed output options like color and paper tray.
Mobile Printing is available from our on-premises print management solution as well as our popular new software-as-a-service (SaaS) cloud-based solution, PrinterCloud. You can choose whichever PrinterLogic solution best suits your organization knowing full well that your end users can now enjoy seamless, full-featured iOS printing support.